


Withering Happiness

by Dreaming_Creator



Category: Deltarune (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, Male Kris (Deltarune)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-22
Updated: 2019-11-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:21:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 64,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21524386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dreaming_Creator/pseuds/Dreaming_Creator
Summary: A nice day with his friends ends horribly when Ralsei encounters an enemy they thought had been locked up for good. Lucky to have escaped the encounter alive, his joy soon fades at a sudden realization, putting him and the rest of the Fun Gang into a race against time to save him from a darkness inside of his heart...and something else is stirring inside of him as well, noticed by him more and more while in the presence of a certain someone...
Relationships: Kris & Ralsei (Deltarune)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 28





	1. A Good Day Turned Bad

Today had been like every other day, with monsters going to work, school, or running errands. And it also was normal for everyone that, some time into the day, two students seemed to be absent. Not that Ms. Alphys, their teacher, gave it much thought. They had already fulfilled their tasks they needed to do, and she was glad that the most violent of all students wasn´t around to thrash others. And since they seemed to have befriended the sole human in the entire town, she seemed to behave much better than she previously did…though outbursts were still not surprising to anyone.

The purple double doors leading into the closet were closed from the inside, as to not bring attention to it. A purple, tall monster stood inside of it, wearing her jacket even though it wasn´t cold. Next to her was the usually quiet und rather unnoticed single human. Kris and Susie waited for their journey to begin, their journey to a place better than their world. The Dark World awaited them. Ralsei awaited them, just like Lancer.

The landing after they fell into the Dark World was rough, as always. But that didn´t bother the two. Kris led the way, bringing them to an abandoned town…or rather, mostly abandoned. There was still life inside the castle of Castle Town, the sole resident and fluffy dark prince of this world. A humble, fluffy person that simply embodied everything that was good in the world. The two made their way to the castle, and Kris gave the door in the back of the area they had met Ralsei the first time in three firm knocks. After some time, it slightly opened to reveal a black head wearing a set of green glasses, a green hat, and behind those glasses sat two shining white gems of eyes.

“Kris, Susie! You´re back, how wonderful!” Ralsei happily said as he quickly pushed the door completely open. The prince then proceeded to give Kris a sincere hug, which he gladly returned. Ralsei knew that Susie wasn´t cut for these things, so he instead just smiled at her whole-heartedly. Ralsei was more than glad that the heroes of the prophecy had fallen down, and even though it had taken a lot of time to do it, Susie had been able to fit the role of a hero as well. Kris was more than just a hero to Ralsei, he was a true friend…the first one in his entire life. There wasn´t a single day he wouldn´t think about this human.

“I´m happy to see you again, too. What do you think, should we get going and meet up with Lancer?” Kris asked him. Lancer, the new king of the Dark World, had been able to make his subjects happy, much unlike his father had done. The tyrant was locked away in a cell down in the dungeon of Card Castle after he had been overthrown by his kingdom, a revolution led by Lancer, who had managed to save his friends after the king had feigned defeat and a change of mind, just to backstab them after Ralsei had selflessly healed him. The prince of darkness shivered at the thought, he couldn´t comprehend how a single person could be as evil as the Chaos King.

“Sure, I bet he is already eagerly waiting for us,” Ralsei beamed, and the trio set off towards the Field. Now that they were heroes of this land, nobody attacked them, but rather greeted them. Ralsei and Kris smiled and waved at others, while Susie simply nodded towards them. She preferred not being in the spotlight, and interacted with others as sparingly as possible. Sooner than later, the trio reached the door, which Kris opened and stepped into, the others following him. They found themselves on the other side of the door just outside Card Castle. Walking through the gates, a beam of light appeared in front of them, letting Rouxls Kaard descend before the group.

“Thou hath returned, Lightners! I am mostest pleased to seeeth thou again,” he proclaims as they walked towards him. Susie was quite annoyed to see him, Ralsei knew, but the prince had to admire that even though Rouxls´ puzzles were…not quite challenging, to say the least, he was at least trying his best and helped Lancer in every way possible. “Hello, Mr. Kaard. We would like to meet with Lancer,” Ralsei said with a smile to the Duke of Puzzles.

“Ah, of course thou and thine friends mayst meet witheth the king. And if thou ever feeleth hungry, spendest some time and money in mine shop, for I hath delicious treats ready for thine consumption,” the duke replied and, with another beam of light, warped out of the area again. The trio continued their way to the elevator, which quickly took them up to the top floor, from where they proceeded to the throne room where, unsurprisingly, Rouxls Kaard was standing next to the throne, which Lancer sat upon.

“I hath made the honour of informing the king of thine arrival, Lightners. Thou mayst taketh him outsideth the castle, as long as thou makest sure that he stayeth safe,” Rouxls announced as they stepped into the throne room. “If it isn´t the Fun Gang!” Lancer happily shouted as he clapped into his hands. “Welcome, my friends. And Lesser Dad, you´re doing a great job. Please, you are in charge while I am absent.”

“I couldn´tst hath asked for a greater reward than thine, young one. I shallst be ruling over thine kingdom as thou wouldst do,” Rouxls said as he bowed before his king. Lancer got off the throne, and hugged the legs of the duke, due to him being so much smaller. “Bye, Lesser Dad. I´ll see you later!” he shouted while waving back at him as the four of them left the room. “You guys can go on ahead, I´ll be with you in a few seconds,” the spade said to the group, and disappeared into his room. The others just shrugged and went into the elevator, taking them down to the first floor again, where they left the castle. Soon afterwards, they could Lancer closing in on them, but it was much quicker and sounded different than running. Looking back, they were able to see him closing in on his bike, just before he narrowly missed the group and came to a screeching halt in front of them.

“Haha, alright guys, what´ll we do now?” Lancer asked them with a grin on his face. He certainly was a good king, Ralsei thought, even though he still was a young kid, which showed in the moments he was with the Fun Gang. “Well, we hadn´t planned anything in particular. How about we play some games and then eat one of Ralsei´s delicious creations?” Kris suggested while the others kept thinking. Ralsei blushed a bit at the compliment of Kris, but was also happy to hear that his food was liked by the others.

“Ugh, playing games? How old are we, nine?” Susie replied in annoyance. Lancer on the other hand began circling around the group on his bike. “Alright, then how about this: if you manage to catch me while I am on my bike within ten minutes, I´ll give up my part of Ralsei´s food to the one who got me,” Lancer brought up. Susie immediately nodded at the thought, and Ralsei had to admit that it wouldn´t be easy to catch Lancer, so it was a fair price for him to pay if he lost. “Well, I think that might be a nice challenge, how about you, Kris?” Ralsei answered while looking at Kris.

“Sure, let´s see how this plays out,” the human replied as he smiled at Ralsei. For a reason unknown to him, the prince´s heart seemed to skip a beat at the smile of him, and then there was that beautiful voice they used not often, but when he did, it had Ralsei almost melt away. Kris really was the best person he had ever met, every day he couldn´t wait for him to reappear in the Dark World. “It´s settled then! The one to touch me first wins, and no, touching my bike doesn´t count!” Lancer exclaimed, and then started racing off. Susie immediately ran after him, and Ralsei had to admit that she was keeping up quite good for Lancer using a vehicle and her not, even though she couldn´t close the distance. Lancer started racing laps around the area, avoiding Kris and Ralsei as they tried to intercept him a few times.

“Hey Kris, I have an idea,” the prince said after a few tries, and whispered it into his ear. The human nodded at the thought of Ralsei, but then looked at him with a questioning look. “Are you sure about this? That way, you won´t be able win, and I´d like you to do so,” Kris asked Ralsei, to which the fluffy prince immediately started to blush. “N-no, it´s fine, really. I want you to win, Kris, and I´d be happy to help you do so,” he brought out, to which Kris smiled at him again.

“You´re adorable, do you know that?” Kris asked him with a grin, causing Ralsei to blush even more. “You look so cute when you´re flustered like that.” Ralsei pulled his hat down deep into his face so that Kris wouldn´t see him blushing even more, heat shooting into his face. Why did he have to do that all the time? It made him feel uneasy, embarrassed, but then again…it also filled him with joy hearing him say these words. He was able to hear Kris laugh a bit, but he could hear that it wasn´t meant in a mean way…he was just amused and happy.

Ralsei could feel Kris pat his shoulder a few times before saying, “Alright then, Ralsei. Let us get into position, I hear Lancer coming closer.” He was able to hear it as well, and so he took the hat out of his face again and positioned himself to the left side of a tree, though a good bit away from it. Lancer came into sight, and Ralsei ran towards him, to which the new king evaded by driving right, just past the tree. Ralsei could see Lancer being tackled by Kris, who had hidden behind the tree to catch Lancer after he avoided Ralsei. The two of them tumbled to the ground, and Lancer´s bike slowed down before coming to a stop.

“Haha, you got him, Kris!” Ralsei excitedly said with glee, and Lancer looked a bit sad, but then smiled anyways. Kris on the other hand got off Lancer and embraced Ralsei, who blushed again as a result. “I couldn´t have done it without you, so thank you, my dear friend,” Kris said with a warm voice. They could hear heavy footsteps closing in on them, and soon afterwards, Susie appeared on the scene, breathing heavily.

“Wait…you got him?” she asked in disbelief and frustration. Kris smiled at her. “Yes, Ralsei and I teamed up and tricked Lancer, so that I was able to catch him,” Kris calmly explained, still holding Ralsei in his arms. “Ugh, of course the love birds form a team. Well, good for you, Kris,” she comments, at which Ralsei´s blush grew stronger. “We aren´t love birds, for your information,” Kris replied in a somewhat aggressive tone, but it felt off to Ralsei, as if Kris didn´t entirely mean what he just said. “Whatever you say, man. I only comment on what I can see, like that blush on your face. Can we just go and eat something now?”

It wasn´t too long until the group returned to Card Castle after eating one of Ralsei´s cakes. He was proud to make such delicious food for his friends, and even though Lancer had lost the challenge, Susie gave him some of her part of the cake, so that he wouldn´t miss out on it. Ralsei was happy to see Susie being a nicer person now, meeting Lancer had definitely had a positive effect on her. The four of them were gathered in front of the area they had sealed the fountain in, and Kris and Susie were ready to go home.

Susie just waved at Ralsei and Lancer quickly, saying only a “Bye,” just like she was used to. Kris did the more or less same thing to Lancer, though nicer, but then he came to Ralsei. The dark prince was kind of used having to say goodbye to him each time, but it didn´t ease the pain he felt. He wanted Kris to stay with him longer, so he wouldn´t have to be alone in his castle anymore. He wanted to spend more time with the person he valued.

“Goodbye, Ralsei. Until we see each other again,” Kris said to him as he took the dark prince into a long and sincere hug, expressing how much he liked the fluffy Darkner. Ralsei hugged him back, almost unable to let go of the human. Kris eventually took his hands away from Ralsei, prompting him to also take his away from the Lightner. “Yes, please don´t take too long to return,” the prince whispered to him, to which Kris only gave him a warm smile. He and Susie went to the spot the dark fountain had been at, and the human´s soul shone a bright light onto the two of them, engulfing them in it and lifting them into the air. After a bright flash that Ralsei and Lancer had to cover their eyes from, they were gone.

“Well, guess it´s time to call it a day, huh?” Lancer asked, and walked towards the throne room again. Ralsei stood there for a few more seconds, looking at where his most precious friend had been just a moment ago. “I´ll be waiting for you in the dark…” he whispered before following Lancer. The dark prince then bid his farewell to Lancer as well, and entered the elevator bringing him down to the entrance of the castle.

Ralsei was just about to leave the castle when he suddenly heard screaming coming from the elevator to the basement. Worried, he walked towards it, just to see a Ruddin Ranger with a terrified look and without its weapon run out of the elevator. With horror in his eyes, he saw Ralsei and stormed towards him. “T-terrible, the Spade King! He-“ he managed to bring out, before a chain wrapped itself around his body. The poor guardian was then smashed against the walls of the corridor until he lost consciousness, to which the chain pulled back from him.

Ralsei looked down the corridor again, shocked to see King stand there, the chain from his mouth in his belly resting in his hand. He menacingly stomped closer to the fluffy boy, who took tiny steps back in fear. How was he supposed to handle the King without Kris or Susie by his side? “YOU, traitorous Darkner who sided with the Lightners!” he roared as he seemed to recognize Ralsei.

“M-mister King, how surprising to see you again,” Ralsei managed to bring out with a faint smile. He hoped that he was able to reason with him, but deep down Ralsei knew that it was hopeless. “SILENCE! You have betrayed your kind, and helped the Lightners who once destroyed our lives. As punishment, your life shall be destroyed, just as the ones of the Lightners!” King shouted at him, and launched a set of five spades at Ralsei, who managed to evade the projectiles. Ralsei sent a silent prayer that the rumble the King caused would alert others in the castle.

“Where are the Lightners that were by your side? Answer me!” King growled. Ralsei knew that he wouldn´t believe the truth, but he wouldn´t lie to him anyways. “My friends have returned home, to their other lives. And by overthrowing you, the living conditions of everyone have improved after the fountain had been sealed!” Ralsei replied with confidence. Couldn´t he see that his reign had brought nothing but despair?

“LIAR! If I can´t beat answers out of you,” King said as he threw his chain, which caught Ralsei,” then I will make you suffer like the Lightners had made us! Feel what withering anguish REALLY is like, traitor!” The King pulled Ralsei closer to him, until he was close enough for him to pick the dark prince up. He then summoned a single black spade right in front of Ralsei, and struck him straight into his heart.

Ralsei cried out in pain. This wasn´t unlike anything that had hit him during his adventure with Susie and Kris, even Jevil´s Devilsknife hadn´t hurt as much. This was completely different, and now the King dropped him onto the ground, releasing the chain that was wrapped around his body. “Now, I will ask you one last time, and I might grant you mercy if you answer correctly. Where! Are! The! LIGHTNERS!” he shouted at the prince, who had rolled down into a small ball of fur because of the pain he felt in his chest.

“Th-their…world…” Ralsei managed to say after mustering up his remaining strength. The King now towered above him, letting his chain swing from one side to the other above the prince. “Yet you still have the audacity to lie into my face? I saw that you were attached to them, they would only leave you to abandon you. And that didn´t happen, from what I heard of the guards. Very well, you will know pain like none have before!”

A sudden beam of light blinded Ralsei, and he could hear the King take two steps back. He could feel two arms pick him up and then a familiar voice talk. “Thou hast inflicted enough pain as it ists, so stayeth away from our hero!” Rouxls Kaard commanded the King. Ralsei couldn´t believe that someone had actually come to his rescue. “Kaard! You dare side with the Lightners as well? You are going to fall before me, I know that you can´t fight anyone,” King roared at him. Rouxls took a few steps back before putting Ralsei down behind him. “Thine argument is correct, which ists why I hath made sure that we won´st be aloneth,” he said to him, and just as he finished, several footsteps could be heard. Many Ruddin Rangers and Head Hathys rushed into the room and ran past Ralsei and Rouxls, subduing the King in a matter of seconds.

“Locketh him up in a new cell, and thou makest sure that he can´t escapeth this time,” the duke commanded, and several Ruddin Rangers and Head Hathys forced the King into the elevator. Rouxls knelt down next to Ralsei, who was still whining in pain. “Are thou hurteth a lot, young one? Shallst I order to hath taken care of thine wounds?” Ralsei slowly managed to stand up again, and tried to focus.

“N-no, thank you. I think I can take care of myself,” Ralsei weakly replied, and cast a Heal Prayer on himself. It did heal his wound, but Ralsei felt that something was off. It didn´t feel refreshing upon casting the spell, but rather exhausting. The worst was part that he still felt a pain inside of his heart, but it was much weaker now. Perhaps he simply needed a good rest after what had just happened.

“Are thou feeling better now?” Rouxls asked him with a worried look on his face. Ralsei thought about what to tell him, he didn´t want to worry anyone. “I think I am, I will just head to my castle and rest, this was truly an experience I wouldn´t want to live through again,” Ralsei answered, at which the duke nodded.

“If anything is still bothering thou, hesitateth not to ask for mine help. If thou are convinced that thine wounds are healed, maketh thine way home and rest a good bit, won´st thou?” Rouxls ordered him, and Ralsei nodded with a weak smile. “I will do so, Mr. Kaard. Thank you for being so kind, and thank you for saving me from the King. I can´t believe he managed to break out of his cell,” Ralsei said, and the Duke of Puzzles shook his head. “It is hard for me to graspeth how he broketh out of the cell, but I shallst have the number of guardians increasedst to ensure this happens never again,” he announced, before disappearing in another beam of light.

Ralsei on the other hand left the castle, a slight pain still stinging inside of his heart. His head was too tossed up to recognize it, however, and he just walked to the door in front of the castle, which took him back to the Fields. From there, the fluffy prince headed towards his castle, where he arrived after a walk of a few minutes. Entering his castle and wandering through long, deserted hallways and corridors, Ralsei reached his room, a candlelit round room with a red carpet filling out the entirety of the floor. Two large windows were positioned at the opposing end of the room, between which Ralsei´s king sized bed stood. Left and right of the windows stood bookshelves, high enough to reach the ceiling which happened to sit four meters above him. A ladder stood next to each shelf, allowing him to reach any of his books.

On the right sight, a good bit away from the shelves, stood a round table two people could sit at, with two comfortable chairs next to it. A set of cups stood on it, for Ralsei enjoyed a cup of tea every now and then. On the left side of the room was a door Ralsei´s clothes were stored inside, located between two of the shelves. Just to the left of the entrance stood an armchair that Ralsei loved to sit in while reading a book. Now however, he just walked over to his bed and threw his hat next to it, crawling onto it afterwards. He put his head onto his pillow and pulled the sheets of the bed up to his chin, and even though there was still a slight pain aching inside of his heart, he felt that he was falling asleep very quickly. With a slight gesture of his hand, the candle´s flames went out and left the room in darkness.

Ralsei´s head was still tossed up, but his thoughts eventually reached Kris. Oh, how he missed Kris already…when he suddenly felt the pain inside of his chest sting stronger. It was only for a short amount of time, but it still made him wonder on why he still felt the pain. He decided that he´d just try to sleep, and if the pain was still going to be there tomorrow, he´d have to find a remedy for it…with this last thought in mind, Ralsei finally sank away into the depths of sleep.


	2. Shopkeeper's Knowledge

First, the pain. Then he felt the comfortableness of his bed under his fluffy body. Afterwards, Ralsei felt…awake. He slowly sat up in his bed, but flinched at the pain in his heart again. It hadn´t gone away, not even close. It had instead grown stronger; not by much, and it was still tolerable, but it had definitely gotten worse. Which meant that Ralsei would have to go and do something about it.

Still tired, he rubbed his eyes for a bit before pulling his sheets away from him, slowly getting out of his bed due to still being tired and exhausted. He waved his right hand to illuminate the area, lighting the candles with his magic. Strangely enough, it felt a bit exhausting for him to do so. _“This is weird…normally, this wouldn´t exhaust me at all…I have a bad feeling about this,”_ he thought with concern.

Even though he was both exhausted and still a bit tired, he was hungry enough to go to the kitchen first. He took one of the candles in his room and went out into the deserted hallways that were his castle. If only he could have people to live with him in his home, then the rooms wouldn´t fill with more dust each single day and remain untouched…

Ralsei pushed a door at the end of another hallway open, stepping inside one of the kitchens. Back when the castle had more inhabitants, the big kitchen was where all the meals had been cooked, and the small ones like the one he just entered would have been used if an event was being held in or outside the castle. Now this one small kitchen was Ralsei´s own, with the most necessary things standing ready for him at all times.

He didn´t use his magic to light up the room this time, as he remembered how he felt when he did so in his own room. He instead lit the candles individually, holding the lit one he was carrying against them to ignite the unlit ones. The room turned from darkness into a soft and warm glowing orange, and Ralsei put his candle onto an empty spot on the wall that didn´t hold a candle.

Ralsei went to a cupboard and opened it, taking out ingredients he needed to bake bread. Back when he had started, he had relied on recipes and cooking books, but over the years, he got to know them all by heart, and it even seemed as if the ones he baked without recipes tasted better than the ones when he had still used them.

Before he poured his ingredients into a mixing bowl, he went over to the old oven and looked inside. He was either able to put a magic fire in there, or get some firewood and ignite it by old and traditional means…then again, fire magic was a traditional way as well. After thinking about it for a bit, he decided that it was better if he found out if there was a connection between his injury and his exhaustion when using magic. He could have been getting sick, which could have impacted his ways of casting magic as well, so he had to be sure that this wasn´t the case.

Ralsei closed his eyes and focused, tapping into his soul to channel his magic. He extended his left hand towards the oven, causing warmth to come from it. At the same time, the pain inside of his heart stung stronger again, if only for a short moment. He opened his eyes again, feeling more exhausted than before casting the spell, while at the same time a fire was burning inside of the oven. He closed it up again, thinking about the events.

 _“So this pain clearly has a connection to my exhaustion. This isn´t anything ordinary, I´ll have to go through my books to see if there is anything written down about something like this,”_ Ralsei thought as he went towards the mixing bowl. He pushed the thought aside, he´d have enough time to think while he was reading through his books.

For now, he swiftly started pouring ingredients into the mixing bowl and began mixing them together. Each step was routine for him by now, and before long, he had the batter in a baking pan, which he put into the oven to make delicious bread. Ralsei knew that he was going to have to wait for some time before it was finished, so he took his candle and started walking to his room again.

He reached it within a few minutes, and set down the candle where he originally took it from. Ralsei then walked over to one of the shelves on the wall, trying to remember where exactly he was going to have to look for the books he needed. Moving the ladder a bit towards the middle of the shelf, he afterwards climbed up a bit until he reached the books about uncommon injuries and diseases. He was used to doing what he did now, balancing the books on his head after he took them out so he could take more.

He eventually had to admit that he had a lot of books to balance, and so he slowly climbed down and took the books into his hands once he reached the ground. From there, the walked over to his armchair and put the books down next to it, sitting onto the comfy furniture and taking a book from the stack next to it. Ralsei started flipping through the pages, stopping a few times when he thought to have found something that was matching his condition, but his search remained fruitless.

It wasn´t too long before Ralsei had to put the last of his books aside, feeling quite hopeless by now. None of his books had anything resembling his condition in them, which meant that he was going to have to deal with this on his own…he started to think why he was in this situation again to begin with, and remembered how he had met the King in the castle, the black spade he had driven into his heart…

Ralsei snapped his fingers at the thought. This had to have been it, without a doubt. There wasn´t any explanation other than that the King had to be the one behind his inconveniences. But Ralsei was sure that he wouldn´t get any answers from the old tyrant, seeing as how he had interacted with Ralsei the two times they had met…both times, Ralsei had been glad to have escaped alive. But he remembered that there was someone who had been around even before the Spade King had taken over as the sole monarch, so maybe he was going to be able to tell Ralsei something that helped.

It was then that his nose caught a stinging smell, one that brought a few tears to his eyes. His eyes went wide in shock as he figured the smell to be the one of smoke, and it brought back the memory that there was still something in the oven…though it was most likely nothing more than a black, smoking pile now. He rushed over to the kitchen to see smoke coming out of the oven; how could he have been as stupid to have forgotten bread inside of it?

Grabbing a bucket of water that always hung on the wall for exactly these kinds of emergencies, he covered one hand with his sleeve and pulled the door of the oven down, an even bigger amount of smoke coming out of it. He quickly made haste to swing the bucket into the direction of his culinary disaster, a big amount of water hitting the inside of the oven, extinguishing the flames and cooling what was left of his bread. He quickly opened the two windows of the kitchen and the adjacent hallways, so that the stench would dissipate.

Covering both of his hands with his sleeves again, he pulled out the pan and set it down on the counter next to it. He really had been so distracted that he had forgotten something in the oven…it could have been even worse, what if this had been a battle instead and he had been distracted, maybe even leading to Kris being injured…

The stinging pain inside of his heart grew stronger again, but this time, he felt an urge inside of him. One he hadn´t felt before, not in his entire life. Fed up with how he could have been so careless, he angrily pointed at what was left of the bread and sent a fireball at it, disintegrating what was left inside of the pan, before throwing it out of the window. Just then, he stopped and came to his senses again.

 _“W-what was that?”_ he asked himself in shock. That what he had just felt…this emotion…he shuddered at the thought of it. It didn´t comply with anything he believed in, this had been something dark, sinister…had he just felt something that could resemble hate? Ralsei took a few steps back from the window, struggling to process what had just happened. Whatever condition he was in, this was definitely not something he could later joke over, if he was able to get over it in the first place.

A knock on the front door of his castle, echoing through the hallways. No, not one knock…three firm ones, in quick succession. This was Kris´ knock, without a doubt. What was he going to tell them? Perhaps it was going to be better to involve them in what was going on with him, but he was going to spare the part of what had just happened…this wasn´t something he was willing to share, not yet at least.

Ralsei rushed to his room and grabbed his hat that was still lying next to his bed, and put it on. He then proceeded with long, quick steps through his castle, as the three knocks repeated themselves. He started running, and he finally reached the door and opened it, panting a little bit. To his surprise, only Kris was standing on the other side of the door.

“Ralsei, there you are! I thought you were never going to open the door,” Kris said with concern in his voice. It did feel bad to have him wait like this, and Ralsei wasn´t happy that he´d have to tell him about what his current state was, but Kris deserved to know what was up with him. “I´m sorry Kris, I have been really distraught this morning…things happened after you and Susie had gone home, bad things,” he replied. He wasn´t even trying to be cheery, he had to show his true colours now.

“Ralsei…what is it? I really don´t like this one bit…” Kris whispered as he stepped closer and put one arm around the dark prince. Ralsei felt a bit more at ease, but he needed answers more than anything right now…even though Kris came in as a close second to the need of answers. “I´ll tell you while we´re on our way. I need to talk to Seam right now, he might be the only one I could get answers from,” Ralsei said to his friend. “By the way, where is Susie?”

“She felt sick today, but should be better by tomorrow. And I really want to know what is bothering you, Ralsei, I am deeply concerned,” Kris replied. It hurt Ralsei to see him so worried, but he was going to have to wait a bit longer. “I see. In that case, let us go, I feel like there isn´t much time to lose,” Ralsei said, and closed the door of the castle after stepping outside. He then subconsciously grabbed Kris´ hand and almost ran towards the field, dragging the human behind him. It was only halfway through the field that Kris spoke up again.

“Ralsei, would you please tell me what is going on? And…I think I can keep up with you, you don´t need to hold my hand if you don´t want to,” he said to the fluffy prince. Ralsei suddenly blushed as he realized that he had been holding his hand the entire time, and quickly let go of it. “I-I´m sorry, Kris, I was just so much in a hurry…anyways, after you had left, I was about to leave Card Castle, when I was suddenly confronted by HIM, Kris” Ralsei replied, shivering at the memory. “Who, Jevil?” Kris wanted to know. Ralsei had almost forgotten about the crazed jester, who was on the loose somewhere in the Dark World after they had freed him. “No, I almost wish it had been him. The Spade King had managed to break out of his cell and found me in the corridors, and he immediately attacked,” Ralsei explained.

“Oh no…what happened next, Ralsei?” Kris asked, clearly even more worried than before. Ralsei had to gulp at the scene in his head. “He demanded to know where you and Susie were, and I told him that you had gone home. He didn´t believe me, of course, and caught me with his chain. He had then hit me with a single black spade, but I still feel a pain inside of me…and every time I use magic, it exhausts me more than it usually would. I fear that he could have done something terrible, and I hope that Seam has some knowledge of this,” Ralsei then went on, and they came to a stop in front of the small shop, or seap as the owner called it.

“Ralsei…please remember that whatever has happened, we will remain a team, and I swear that if there is something that has to be done to help you get past this, I will gladly do so,” Kris calmly said to the goat monster, and gave him a sincere hug. Ralsei´s heart seemed to skip a beat, and he felt heat rush to his face. “T-thank you…” he whispered, before Kris let go of him with a caring smile. Ralsei then looked at the shop again, and with a sigh, the two of them entered.

Seam sat behind his counter, a lantern hanging just above him. He was smiling as always, and greeted them as they entered. “Welcome, heroes…ha ha ha…” he said with his joyless laughter. “Good day, Seam…I was hoping that you had some knowledge you could share with me,” Ralsei greeted the shopkeeper. He felt quite sorry for him, as his only friend was somewhere loose in the kingdom after he had to lock him away so many years ago.

“I know a lot of things, young one…many of which would drive you insane…just ask this old man, ha ha ha. What is it that you want to know?” Seam replied, and poured some tea into a cup that he put on the counter, and then pushed it over to Ralsei. He thanked him before taking a sip, fresh and hot, just how Ralsei liked it. “It has to do with the Spade King. You see, he had broken out of his cell the day before, and attacked me with a black spade. I didn´t think much of it at first, but I can still feel a pain inside of my heart, and I feel more exhausted than usual after using my magic. Do you perhaps know anything about this?”

Seam´s fake, joyless smile faded, and he looked at Ralsei with a deeply troubled look. “So the old tyrant has done it…this darn fountain, back when it was still there…” he mumbled, and Ralsei´s ears twitched. He seemed to know something, without a doubt. “Sigh…you see, back when that fool was put in power, the fountain as well as what he felt towards the Lightners had corrupted his innermost thoughts, turning his heart dark and twisted…a few who he deemed worthy of such punishment would be hit with a black spade, ha ha ha…he tried it with Jevil, too, but he was the only one so far who not only survived it, but even managed to cure himself…”

“So there is a way to cure this?” Ralsei asked with hope. He knew it; the old shopkeeper was his saviour. “You mean…everyone else had died because of it?” Kris suddenly whispered behind him. Ralsei had completely forgotten about their presence, and at that question, his heart suddenly sank deeper...he hadn´t thought of what could happen if there was no way to cure him.

“Ha ha…yes, many lives were taken this gruesome way. Slowly, their hearts were consumed by the darkness of the fountain and the King´s corrupted mind, filling them with pain and hate, just like the King…only that they weren´t strong enough to endure it, and they died slowly, but painfully, the pain growing stronger each day. Violent outbursts were another side effect, too…” Seam calmly explained.

“So this explains what I have done this morning…” Ralsei whispered as he looked to the ground. Was this really what was before him? “Ralsei…you didn´t tell me about that…” Kris said to him, sounding disappointed. The dark prince felt even worse now. “I-I´m sorry, Kris, I didn´t see a connection there, so I just ignored it. I had gotten angry at myself for letting some bread in the oven burn while I was researching my condition, and ignited it with a fireball…”

“Ha ha…so the darkness is already starting to consume you…better hurry and try to cure it, before it gets worse…” Seam laughed, joyless as always. “What do we have to do to cure Ralsei?” Kris suddenly said as he slammed both of his hands onto the counter, surprising both Seam and Ralsei. “Well…there are three ways to do so…but all of them seem about equally as hopeless…I feel like I know which one would be the most likely one to work out…” Seam started, and took a sip of his own tea. “You could go and ask the Spade King to revert the curse, as he has the power to do so, since he cast it upon you. Ha ha, not that he ever would…”

“I´ll spare you explaining the second one, as that won´t happen anyways…and well, if you fail with the third way, come back to me, and I might just tell you about it…then at least you´d know what could have saved your life, ha ha ha…” he laughed again, and took another sip. Ralsei was already leaning closer to the shopkeeper, eager to know what could save him. “The third option would be to find someone who is powerful enough to cure you from the curse…and there is only one being that I know of that fits that description…” Seam said as he seemed to become even more joyless than before.

“Jevil, he survived the King, if it is true,” Ralsei replied, as to which Seam nodded. “If you can find my old friend, he could possibly save you…but seeing as how his mind isn´t in the right place, I´d actually laugh sincerely for once if you managed to pull that one off, ha ha ha…maybe, just maybe, you could bring him back to me…I know a lot, and maybe I am able to stitch the few strings in his mind back together…”

“So we have to find Jevil in order to cure Ralsei?” Kris asked him again. Seam started to laugh again, a joyless and hollow laughter. “If it were that simple…yes, you need to find him…and then survive him…and then make him lift that curse of yours, maybe even bring him to me so that I can try to set his mind right…and all of that before time runs out…ha ha, and with how the young fellow here has trouble casting magic, I think he might not be able to help you as much while his curse progresses…”

Ralsei gulped before he asked one question that he dreaded the answer of. “H-how long is the time frame I have left?” Seam looked at him carefully before answering. “That depends on how pure the heart of the one struck is…some died in a few hours, others lasted two days…the ones with pure hearts suffer the most, but they have a few days they can live…you have about four days left before the curtain falls…ha ha ha…”

“Four days? We can´t do anything today, we don´t have Susie with us…and we´ll need her if we were to defeat Jevil again,” Kris said with frustration as he slammed his fist onto the counter again. “D-don´t worry, Kris! You said she´d be better tomorrow, so maybe we can prepare ourselves for the journey up ahead and leave early tomorrow?” Ralsei suggested as he pat the human´s left shoulder. Kris´ tensed up shoulders slowly relaxed, and he nodded firmly.

“Yeah, you´re right. We should use this day as best as we could,” he said before heading out of the store. “Thank you, Seam. I hope that we´ll be able to find Jevil,” Ralsei said as he took his last sip out of the cup in front of him. The tea suddenly tasted a lot bitterer than before…

“Ha ha…good luck, you will need it…and I only say that so you return him to me…maybe I can find something in my life again. And if you don´t, come back so that we can have a last cup of tea together…it tastes better with another hopeless soul to drink it with, ha ha ha. And if you don´t come back…well, I´ll know what happened,” the old shopkeeper said as he took Ralsei´s cup and put it away. Ralsei thanked him again before leaving the little shop, where Kris waited for him.

“Four days…Ralsei, I will promise you one thing. I will help you to be cured of the darkness inside of you, no matter what. I won´t lose you,” Kris said to him as he took him into a tight hug. Ralsei was surprised at the words of him, but hugged him back nonetheless.

 _“Yes, four days…at least I get to spend this one with you and only you…”_ Ralsei thought to himself, as the two of them stood there. The race had begun. The race against the hate that threatened to wither Ralsei´s purity away…


	3. Alone With A Dear Friend

Ralsei didn´t know how much time had passed. Mere seconds? Whole minutes? He couldn´t tell, but with each second that passed, he felt comfortable in Kris´ embrace. There were so many things on his mind, a chaos worthy of the one they had to find in order to cure him…but amidst the hurricane of thoughts inside of his head stood Kris, the eye of the storm, calming him while everything else seemed to fall apart.

Since the first time they had fought a battle side by side, Ralsei was amazed at the aura of calmness that radiated from the human, standing tall and collected against any enemy that faced them. He always kept his cool, commanding their team to victory every time. But he wasn´t just a calm observing leader; he was a friend, there to lend a helping hand wherever it was needed. And he cared deeply for his friends, just how Ralsei witnessed it in this very moment.

Ralsei thought back to the times before the heroes of the prophecy fell. Tyranny had ruled over the kingdom, and it seemed as if he had been the only one save from it, hidden away in Castle Town. Nobody from the outside was able to open the Golden Gate once it was closed. Sometimes, Ralsei would have snuck out into the Fields and try to help the few souls that lived there…until there hadn´t been anyone left to be helped. Disappeared without a trace, he had later found out that the King had been unhappy about the circumstances of the Field´s inhabitants, and had promptly ordered for them to be arrested.

Ralsei had been left heartbroken back then, how could him helping others have made everything worse? He hadn´t snuck out of the safety of Castle Town again. Best if he was going to be forgotten for all of eternity, so that he couldn´t make things worse. He hadn´t been too weak to fight the King´s troops…he didn´t want to do it. He had pledged his life to a path of pacifism, believing in making a difference by being kind. Needless to say, he had tried it, but the King´s troops feared what could become of them had the King found out more than they appreciated his acts of generosity.

But Ralsei never gave up, because he knew that the prophecy would come true. It had been his only hope…and the two that had finally fallen exceeded his hopes in…well, every way. Susie had been interesting, to say the least. She was a hero, Ralsei hadn´t doubted it, but it was her who had refused to accept it. She had even become a villain for a time, but ultimately she had had a change of heart; and while she was still getting used to perform acts of kindness rather than swings with her axe, she was a better person now.

Kris however was the perfection in person he had never dared hope to see in his life. Both calm and wise in his decisions, always helping those in need…he fit the description of a hero more than Ralsei had anticipated. And then those acts of kindness of Kris towards Ralsei. Like hugging him when he was supposed to fight a training dummy, or giving him the white ribbon he found in a chest. Kris had been nothing but kind towards Ralsei, every day it seemed as if Kris had to go too early, and Ralsei had to force himself not to fall on his knees and beg for him to stay longer.

And now it all seemed as if it was all being taken away. From him; he had to fear for his literal life, as time was working against him. From the Darkners, as one of their heroes was about to perish. And lastly from Kris, who had found a very close and special friend in Ralsei, as far from what he had told the dark prince. Their task seemed to be impossible; finding Jevil alone was going to be hard enough on its own. But then they had to survive his chaos again, afterwards get him to cure Ralsei from the curse, and perhaps set his mind right again. Everything in his mind raced from one place to another, and Ralsei just couldn´t take any more as tears formed in his eyes.

He started to cry against Kris´ shoulder, and the human slowly patted his own and held him tight all the time. How was Ralsei supposed to live with the possibility of leaving Kris like this, of one of his only friends perishing? It wasn´t fair, it wasn´t fair…these words repeated themselves in Ralsei´s mind, the pain inside of his heart stinging stronger than before. Ralsei whimpered and flinched at the feeling in his heart, and he lost his sense of balance.

He was glad that Kris still held him, so that he didn´t just fall over, but the human seemed to have noticed Ralsei suddenly going limper than before. Kris carefully started to kneel down while holding him, and allowed the dark prince to sit on the ground. The pain was still there, stinging strong, causing him to clutch his hands to where his heart sat as a reaction. After another minute that seemed like an eternity the strong pain grew weaker again, still notable but tolerable. Ralsei panted, and he noticed tears in his eyes as well as his face.

Kris knelt next to him, and Ralsei caught his worried and frustrated expression. The human used one of his sleeves to clean the fluffy boy´s tears away, for which he was thankful…Ralsei just couldn´t concentrate on anything after that moment. “Ralsei…are you better now?” Kris asked with a bit of a shaky voice. Ralsei didn´t fully notice it however, he still was troubled by what had just happened…and what was to happen as well.

“Y-yeah…it´s grown weaker again…please, can we just return to my castle? I don´t want anyone to see me like this…” Ralsei pleaded, he wanted to be in the comfortableness of his own room again. But not alone, he wanted to be there with Kris. He was the only one who could make his time bearable…

“Of course, whatever your wish is. Here, you can lean onto my shoulder if you´re still feeling weak,” Kris offered him, and got to Ralsei´s right. The dark prince wasted no time and put his arm onto his friend´s far shoulder, and when Kris slowly stood up again, he held onto it to help him pull himself off the ground. Once they were both standing, Ralsei held onto Kris for longer, it was just too comforting to him. Kris never objected, so together they slowly started walking through the Field again, into the direction of Castle Town.

 _“Oh Kris…thank you so much for being here…”_ Ralsei thought, and tried to rest his head onto Kris left shoulder. He found his hat to be in the way though, but he quickly took it off with his left hand and rested his head where he wanted it to rest. Kris again didn´t object, and Ralsei found to actually have trouble keeping his eyes open and not simply fall asleep while resting his head like that.

He almost failed to notice where they had been by some point, and only realized that they had arrived in Castle Town when Kris came to a stop again. They stood in front of the castle Ralsei called his home, so Ralsei slowly took his arm away from Kris and pushed the door open. He gestured Kris to step in, and the fluffy prince entered through the door once his friend had done so as well.

“Well…welcome to my castle. Excuse me if it isn´t tidied up, I wasn´t expecting to actually have someone here at some point…” Ralsei had to admit once he realised that the whole castle was dusted. “Don´t worry about it, my room isn´t fancy to look at either, so I am used to it,” Kris replied with a smile…a smile that immediately comforted Ralsei again.

“Well, then I´m glad! Come, I´ll show you my room,” Ralsei said, and took the lead as he walked through the hallways with Kris behind him. He was used to walking around his home, but Kris didn´t seem to be able to see much in the darkness, as the candles weren´t lit. “How do you navigate through here in this darkness?” he eventually asked, and Ralsei just then noticed that his friend seemed to have fallen behind quite a bit.

“O-oh, sorry…I´m used to it by now, but I´ll help you,” Ralsei apologized, and waved his hand to light the candles in the corridors. Quite immediately, he felt more exhausted again, much to his worry. _“If this tires me out a bit, how am I supposed to be able to help in a fight? Not to mention one against Jevil…I´ll have to find a workaround in my books…”_

“Ralsei, don´t do this for my sake if it tires you out…” he heard Kris say next to him, ripping him out of his thoughts. He most likely had seen the exhausted look on his face. “N-no, it´s fine. I´m here to help, remember? I want you to feel comfortable,” Ralsei said while blushing, and he blushed even more as he realized that Kris was very able to see his blush, as he was still carrying his hat in his left hand.

“I´ll feel comfortable when you don´t put yourself in discomfort for me. Don´t just think about others, you need to consider your own wellbeing as well,” Kris said as he put a hand on Ralsei´s shoulder. He seemed to be serious about it, but Ralsei could have sworn that there was a faint blush on the human´s face as well. “Alright, I´ll take it in consideration…come, my room isn´t far anymore,” Ralsei gave in, he just couldn´t say ‘no’ to Kris. Leading the way again, they soon reached the door to the room he lived in.

Ralsei pushed the door open, stepping inside and putting his hat on his bed afterwards. Kris on the other hand walked inside and closed the door after him, looking around the room first. “Quite a fancy room you got, Ralsei,” he eventually said, to which Ralsei smiled a bit. It definitely was the best room in the castle, though not quite his favourite place. “W-well, thanks, Kris. Only the best for royalty, right?” he replied with a smile.

 _“Oh, where are my manners? I haven´t even offered him something to drink or anything,”_ he suddenly realized, and pointed at one of the two chairs next to the tale. “Why don´t you have a seat? Are you perhaps hungry or thirsty?” he asked them as he felt a bit of heat rise to his face again. Why was Kris´ mere presence able to make him blush like that?

“If you ask like this…perhaps we could both eat something. What do you have in store?” Kris asked him back after some time. Ralsei´s blood froze as he realized that he hadn´t had anything for him because he was always making everything on demand…

“U-uhm…I just realized that I´d have to make something first, if it doesn´t bother you…” he admitted, but Kris just gave him a smile. “Well, if that is the case, why don´t we cook our food together?” he asked the dark prince, who was surprised at the proposal. But if it meant spending more time close to Kris, then he wouldn´t give that chance away…

“Really? Of course, I´d be happy to!” Ralsei beamed, and led him out of his room again. They walked down the corridor, which brought a memory back to Ralsei. The one of this morning, where he had left his bread unattended in the oven, which led to…he quickly pushed the thought aside, and focused on his time with Kris instead. This was no time to be unhappy, not with his best friend next to him.

Ralsei and Kris entered the kitchen, with the candles still lit from prior that day. The fluffy prince wasn´t sure what they were going to eat, but he figured that he was just going to ask Kris. “So, what would you like to eat?” he asked the human, who simply shrugged. “I don´t know, I´ll just eat what you choose.”

 _“This doesn´t make it any easier…uh…something simple, I guess?”_ Ralsei thought as he was quickly going through various meals in his head. While he was thinking, his gaze landed upon a bag of potatoes, finally giving him an idea. It wasn´t anything special, but was most likely going to be enough for the two of them. “Alright, then how about we roast some potatoes in a pan with some onions? It tastes really good, trust me,” he offered to Kris.

“I see no problem with that, as long as we get to eat something anytime soon,” the human replied as his stomach gave an audible agreement. Ralsei chuckled at it for a bit before reaching for a big frying pan, but it hung just out of reach. Had he really never used that frying pan while he had been alone? He could suddenly feel someone standing next to him and reach for the pan as well, taking it from the hook off the wall.

Ralsei looked to his left, where Kris stood with the pan in hand, smiling. “Allow me to help you, your highness,” Kris said with a warm smile, causing Ralsei´s face to heat up again. He quickly turned around to grab some firewood from the basket next to the stove, putting it into an opening underneath the grill they were going to put the pan onto.

“Don´t you dare using magic again, Ralsei. You´re exhausted enough as it is,” he suddenly heard next to him in a commanding, yet pleading and concerned tone. Kris had to have seen that Ralsei had pointed his hands at the firewood in order to light it up with fire magic. “Alright Kris, I´ll do it for you,” he sighed as he went towards a drawer and took out a box of matches.

“It´ll probably take a bit until it burns, but once it does we should have a nice fire going for a while,” Ralsei mentioned, but Kris just took another box out of the drawer. “Well, then I´ll just help you,” Kris offered, all while smiling again…what did Ralsei do to deserve so much kindness? Together they lit their matches, and tried to ignite the wood inside of the stove. It took them a bit, but before long, the wood caught fire and started to burn nicely.

“Great, now that we have that ready, we should prepare the potatoes. We´ll peel just as many as we want, alright?” Ralsei asked his friend, who simply nodded with a smile. They took the bag of potatoes and poured it out on the counter in the middle of the kitchen, and both took out knives out of a drawer to peel them with. While they were first working away in silence, Ralsei soon started to hum the one song he had known since his early childhood. It took him some time to notice, however, that Kris at some point started humming along.

Ralsei was surprised at this reaction of the human next to him, but it was a welcome surprise for sure. They both went on with their work; grabbing a potato from the pile, peeling it, and then putting it aside. At one point, they both wanted to grab the same potato, resulting in Kris accidentally grabbing Ralsei´s hand. The dark prince immediately blushed at the realization and wanted to pull his hand away as to not discomfort Kris, but the human instead put his knife away and took Ralsei´s hand in-between the both of his own.

“Y’know Ralsei…as troublesome as this whole situation seems, I´m really glad that I can spend some time alone with you. You mean so much to me, I couldn´t be more happy to have you in my life,” Kris said to him, and of course Ralsei felt his entire face getting hot at his words and actions. “T-thanks, Kris. I just feel the same about you; I couldn´t imagine my life without you anymore…” Ralsei managed to reply with his entire face being red by now.

Kris´ reaction was one he could have expected, but his hug still surprised the fluffy prince. He held the dark prince quite tightly, but not in a discomforting way…more as if Kris feared losing him if he let go. Ralsei hugged his friend back, and a tear started to form in his eye…he was truly blessed to have a friend like Kris. They stood there motionless for what seemed like an eternity, only their breathing and the sound of the burning fire in the stove audible.

“We´ll see this through, Ralsei, I know we will. Seam said that there is a way to do it, and if there is a way, I will stop at nothing to find and walk it with you. Wherever Jevil currently is, he can´t hide from us,” Kris whispered into his ear after some time. This Lightner truly cared about him, didn´t he? “Together, nothing can stop us, just like it has always been…right?” Ralsei asked him, and he could feel his friend nod.

Kris let go of Ralsei again, allowing him to see that his face was a covered in a slight shade of red as well. Kris smiled at him, and Ralsei could only smile back. “Well…I still think that we should make something to eat, though. You must be quite hungry by now,” Ralsei then brought back up as he looked at the small pile of potatoes that had yet to be peeled. “Sure, I really am to be honest. What´ll we do after we have eaten something?” Kris asked as they went back to peeling potatoes.

“I´ll have to go through some of my books again. With how things are, I won´t be of much help in battles or similar. But I believe that there are potions that can strengthen a magic user´s pool of energy, enabling them to cast more spells before tiring out. If I had something like that, I could be of assistance just like I used to be,” he replied as he peeled the final potato. Kris looked at him with an interested look, and Ralsei tilted his head a bit.

“Are you interested in potions and such, Kris?” he wanted to know, gaining a smile as a reaction from his friend. “I´ll admit that I am. In our world, we don´t use them anymore, as there are only few magic users left. And for other needs we rely on our technology…it sounds really interesting, so I´d like to be there with you when you´re making one,” Kris answered, and an idea popped up in Ralsei´s head. Maybe he wouldn´t accept his offer, but it was worth a try…and more time with Kris was always a plus in his book.

“W-well Kris, why don´t you stay over for the night then? Maybe I could even make a potion for you, if I found something suitable. And then you could pick up Susie early in the morning and bring her here, so that we can go and find Jevil afterwards,” he offered with a smile. _“Please say ‘yes’,”_ Ralsei thought with hope.

“Hm…I don´t know, my mom would be pretty worried if I didn´t come home today…” Kris started, diminishing his hopes. “But if you really want me to stay over, then I guess I won´t be able to say ‘no’. And since we don´t have school tomorrow, I could just tell my mom that I slept over at Susie´s and will be hanging out with her the entire day, which isn´t a lie, really,” the human then continued with a smile, sending Ralsei into a state of euphoria, though he did his best to hide it.

“R-really? Ha ha, great, I´m glad that you accepted!” Alright, maybe he didn´t do a good job at hiding it…but what he said was the truth. And Kris seemed to smile even more at his outburst of joy. “It´s settled, then. Now, if we want to make it to the evening, however, we need to eat first…I´m starving already,” Kris reminded him.

“Right, all we have to do now is cut the potatoes into smaller pieces, as well as the onion. And we´ll need a bit of oil in the pan, of course,” Ralsei replied and took a bottle of oil out of a cupboard. Kris on the other hand took the onion and grabbed his knife. “Then I´ll prepare the onion, and help you with the potatoes if you aren´t finished by the time I am done with it,” Kris replied and started to cut away.

Ralsei on the other hand put the pan onto the stove and gave a few drops of oil in, making sure to spread it among the surface. He then grabbed his own knife and started cutting the potatoes into smaller bits, so that they could be easily picked up and eaten. “Ugh, that´s why I never eat something with onions…” he was able to hear next to him after a bit. He looked over to Kris, who had tears in his eyes thanks to the onion he cut. Ralsei took a piece of his sleeve into his hand and wiped the tears away after he had made sure that Kris had closed his eyes before doing so.

“Thanks, Ralsei…you really are a special person…” the human said and fluffed Ralsei´s fur on his head a bit, to which Ralsei closed his own eyes…he didn´t know that it was going to feel so enjoyable to have his head fluffed like that. “Haha, you´re so adorable,” he heard Kris say, to which he opened his eyes again. His friend was grinning in enjoyment, but he also had a faint blush on his face. And the thing he said made Ralsei blush as well, just as it always did.

“Alright, I´m hungry…let´s put all of that into the pan, shall we?” Kris said after he had fluffed his fur a bit more, to which Ralsei nodded and put the potatoes into the pan, followed by the onion pieces. He then took a spatula off a hook on the wall and started mixing them together; all while a sizzling sound filled the room, followed by the delicious smell of freshly made food.

After a few minutes, Ralsei took the pan of the stove and put it aside, reaching into a drawer and taking out two plates and forks out of it afterwards. He then evenly put the food onto the plates and gave Kris one, who thanked him. “I guess we can just let the fire burn down on its own. We´ll eat over in my room, the chairs are quite comfortable,” Ralsei suggested, and seeing how Kris didn´t object, he led him back to his room again after picking up his own plate.

They arrived in Ralsei´s room shortly afterwards, where they both sat down at the table and started eating. Kris appeared to have been really hungry, as he tore into his food with a motivation that surprised Ralsei, but he was quite hungry as well. Keeping to his modesty, he ate at a slower pace than Kris, but still quickly enough to not take much longer than his friend would.

“You said that you relied on technology for most things necessary, Kris. Is it like that in the Light World…that everything is done by or with machines?” Ralsei asked between bites. He had thought about Kris statement when they talked about the potions, and he couldn´t get his mind off of it. “Well, it isn´t far from the truth. Magic plays only a little role in our world by now, most things can be achieved by the things invented by us Lightners. It still holds tradition within our world, but the number of magic users shrinks with each year…it´s sad, really. But I´m afraid that most humans are incapable of using magic, so I can do nothing in that regard…” Kris replied after some time, a bit of a darkened expression covering his face.

“You would like to be able to use magic?” Ralsei inquired. Now that was something Ralsei was interested in. “Yeah! Magic is cool and all, but that´s only partly the reason. Magic just feels more natural, it just feels…right. Plus, with magic you can see immediate effects, done by you and only yourself,” his friend explained, and it did make sense to the dark prince. There was a beauty in magic that he couldn´t look over. Not nearly as beautiful as the one on the other side of the table, but…

Ralsei internally slapped himself. When did that thought come to his mind? Besides, it wasn´t like Kris would share such a thought…he was a mere Darkner, but at least a friend to Kris. He shoved the thought aside and continued eating, which the both of them did while exchanging stories from their past or worlds. Eventually, they had finished their meal, and Ralsei could see that Kris was satisfied, much to his joy. He put the plates aside so that he was able to wash them later when he had the time to do so, for now he had to focus on the potions that he was going to need for the next adventure.

Ralsei walked over to a different shelf than the last time, and climbed the ladder almost up to the top. He could see Kris watching him with an interested look, and the fluffy prince gestured him to come closer. “I´ll need a few books, can you catch them when I drop them down?” he wanted to know. It was going to make things a lot easier that way. “Sure, just warn me and look where you drop them beforehand,” Kris replied, and positioned himself next to the ladder.

Ralsei looked over the books before him, and took one out. “Book´s coming down,” he warned Kris, and dropped it down slightly in front of his friend. Kris swiftly caught it and put it aside so that he was able to catch more of them, so they repeated the procedure three more times before Ralsei started climbing down again.

Ralsei took the books and carried them over to his armchair, where he sat down and opened the first book. Kris sat down on one of the armrests and gazed into the book as well, so Ralsei didn´t flip through the book as he did earlier that day, and instead gave Kris enough time to briefly read the effects of various potions. Once Ralsei was through with the first book, which took longer than he had anticipated, he gave it to Kris, who immediately started rereading the parts that had piqued his interest.

In the second book, Ralsei was happy to have found something that suited his needs. It was a potion that would make a magic user´s energy pool more sustainable, exactly what he needed. He quickly got up and took a notebook out from under his bed, as well as a pencil. He then returned to the book and started writing down the necessary ingredients, as well as the time the potion would last and how strong the effect actually was.

Once written down, he proceeded to look for more potions, as it was possible that there were similar potions with slightly different effects, duration of effects, ingredients and so on. He was quickly finished with the second book, putting it down next to Kris who was still reading the entries that interested him. “Hey Ralsei, do you have another notebook at hand, and if so, could I have it please? I want to write a few things down as well,” Kris asked his friend as he was about to pick up the third book.

“Of course, coming right up,” Ralsei cheered as he got up and took another notebook from under his bed, as well as another pencil. He always had enough down there if he wanted to write a lot, so it came in handy right now. “Thank you,” Kris said with a smile as Ralsei gave him the requested items, and quickly began taking notes as well. The fluffy prince decided to ask him about his findings once he was done with his own research.

Time passed and notes were written down, and after a lot of research, Ralsei had finally collected everything he needed. He still had to compare the different potions, but he knew that it wouldn´t take as much time as taking the notes did. Kris on the other hand was eagerly reading through the fourth book, and was near the last pages by now, so Ralsei quickly picked the plates from the table up and brought them to the kitchen, where he deposited them in a sink so that he was able to clean them later.

As he entered his room again, he found Kris putting his notebook onto the table as well, as well as carrying the books Ralsei had taken out. “Are you finished taking notes as well?” Ralsei asked him as he closed the door. Kris looked over at him and then down at his notes, and gave him a warm smile. “I think I am, there´s a lot of interesting stuff in these books,” he replied, much to the dark prince´s enjoyment.

“I never took you for a book person, to be honest…” Ralsei admitted as they both sat down at the table again. “Well, I don´t read a lot, that´s true. If something catches my interest, however, I´m in for it,” Kris simply replied as Ralsei started to look at his notes. He compared the different stats of the various potions he had found, until he finally came to a conclusion.

“Alright, I think I got it. This potion here has the strongest effect combined with the longest duration that I was able to find. So, out of curiosity: what did you find?” he said as he looked at Kris, who looked down at his own notes. “A few helpful potions, but I don´t know how much time and space we have, so we might have to choose wisely which ones to pick. This one here makes one more nimble for a limited duration, so that they could evade attacks more easily.”

“Then…higher resistances, resulting in less damage taken from attacks, or maybe one that enhances all of your physical capabilities such as strength…there´s plenty,” Kris went on, and Ralsei had to admit two things: what Kris had listed sounded like a lot of helpful potions they could use in a battle against Jevil; and that seeing him so invested in a topic he liked as well made him incredibly happy. He knew of another potion, however, one that he´d make once this whole story was over. Something he intended to gift Kris, a potion not mentioned in any of the four books, but rather a secret formula hidden inside of the castle, as that potion held immense potential.

Ralsei knew that it was the ultimate gift he was able to give Kris after the conversations they had, and he wanted to do everything in his power to make Kris happy. “We´ll just make the one you think will be the most useful, for now I´ll have to concentrate on the potion intended for me,” Ralsei said to him as he stood up. Kris stood up as well, and they walked to the door of Ralsei´s room. The dark prince led him down the corridor again, but he entered a different door this time, which had a staircase leading down into the basement behind it. He took one of the candles off the wall and slowly walked down the dark staircase, always making sure that Kris was closely behind them so that his friend wouldn´t trip.

After walking down for about a minute, they arrived in a chamber Ralsei hadn´t visited in a long time. Walking along the walls and igniting the candles with his lit one, the brewing chamber was slowly illuminated. Several shelves with glass bottles were to their left, amidst them a door leading to the room all the ingredients were stored in. In front of them were two cauldrons hanging above fireplaces, while to their right a stream of water flowed from one opening in the wall to another.

“It is connected to the river flowing near the castle; we use the water for all sorts of things: brewing, cooking, washing, you name it,” he explained as he noticed Kris looking at the flow of water. “Interesting, I always wondered where you´d get water from. So…you are going to make a potion, right?” Kris replied, and looked at Ralsei with a deeply interested look.

“W-well, that was the plan. According to my notes…” Ralsei mumbled as he opened the door where the ingredients were behind, and stepped into the room. “We´ll need this…and that, some of this as well…huh? I thought I had lost that book a year ago! It was just down here, must have forgotten it one day…” he kept on mumbling as he took several herbs, mushrooms and liquids, as well as a dusty book from different places.

Ralsei took as much as he was able to into his hands and stepped into the main chamber again, but he wasn´t able to see anything because of the things he carried in front of him. It was then that what he was carrying suddenly was lifted out of his hands, revealing Kris who smiled at him. “Allow me to help you with this,” he said, and brought the ingredients over to one of the cauldrons. Ralsei again started to blush…did Kris seem nicer than the other times he had been around? He wasn´t quite sure, but it didn´t change the fact that he appreciated the gestures of his friend a lot.

He went back to the storage room and brought the remaining things necessary to the cauldron, where he started sorting the things into the order he was going to put them inside the cauldron. “Alright Kris, I could use your help with this. We´ll need water as a first step, would you help me with carrying this thing, please?” he asked his friend, who patiently waited for anything to happen on the other side of the cauldron.

“You don´t even need to ask, ready to lift when you are,” Kris replied, still with that warm and charismatic smile that made Ralsei blush whenever it was directed at him. “Alright, ready,” the dark prince said as he took the half of the handle on his side into his hands. Kris did the same on his side, and together they lifted the cauldron off the hook above the fireplace and carried it over to the stream of water. It was quite easy, especially with two people carrying it, but Ralsei knew that once there was water inside of the cauldron, it was going to be a lot heavier, which was why he wasn´t able to brew any potions anymore…he had nobody to help him do so.

They put the cauldron into the stream of water and let it fill with the liquid, pulling it out afterwards again. They then carried it back to the fireplace, although they were moving it more slowly this time, given that the cauldron was a lot heavier now. With their combined efforts, they managed to hang it back above the fireplace onto the hook, panting a lot after the exhausting task. Ralsei walked over to the stream of water again and collected some water with his hands, which he drank afterwards to refresh himself. Kris was soon next to him and did the same, sweat visible on his face.

“Phew, that was the hardest task. Now we´ll just have to mix the right ingredients in at the right time. Would you be so kind and ignite the firewood under the cauldron, Kris? Then I can prepare something else,” Ralsei wanted to know. Kris looked around until he saw some flint and stone on a shelf. “Sure thing, happy to help you,” Kris replied, and took the items necessary to start a fire.

While Kris was busy working on the fire, Ralsei stood in front of the cauldron and closed his eyes, focusing on the energy that rested inside of his soul. He put his right hand flat on his chest, slowly taking it away again. Ralsei had released his soul from his body, letting it hover above the cauldron for further use. He still had his eyes closed, but as he heard Kris gasp for air, he knew that something was off and opened his eyes again.

He quickly saw what Kris was shocked about, and it took him a lot of effort not to let out a cry of shock at the sight before him. It was his soul; a white heart, just like what souls of monsters looked like, a stark contrast to both human souls and the black heart on Ralsei´s robe…although the black heart seemed to fit more than he wanted to. Coming from the centre of the soul were black cracks, covering about a third of the soul…without a doubt this was the curse of the Spade King progressing slowly, but steadily.

“So…this is how bad it really is…” Ralsei gulped as he kept looking at his corrupted soul. The King hadn´t just taken a strike at his heart, it was a blow against his very being, what made him the person he was. “I have never seen anything like this, but I can FEEL its struggles…how can you keep up with all of that pain, Ralsei?” Kris asked as he kept looking at the soul, seemingly uneasy. It was just then that Ralsei remembered that effect the curse had, and as soon as he did, he noticed the pain again.

Shooting sharper than before, the pain had grown to a level where Ralsei was barely able to tolerate it, and he flinched at how severe it was by now. He had been so focused on Kris and their activities that he had completely ignored the pain, but there it was, raging inside of his heart. Again he clutched his hand to the source of the pain, and Kris quickly rushed over to him with a deeply concerned look. The dark prince slowly sat down on the ground, and pointed at one of the shelves on the wall.

“K-K-Kris, the…yellow potion…at the top…right,” he managed to bring out as he remembered a potion that was able to help him, even if only for a few hours. Kris looked at the shelf in question and hustled over to it, taking out the potion Ralsei was talking about and brought it back to his friend. The fluffy prince removed the cork from the bottle, and downed the content of it. A sour taste, but that was something he didn´t care about, he simply waited for the potion to take effect.

And then the pain grew weaker, number, just as the feeling all over him did. He knew that it was a quickly found solution that wasn´t optimal, but the pain had been bad enough for him to accept any side effects. “Thanks…” he managed to say, it took him some effort to speak, something Kris seemed to notice. “Ralsei? What was the effect of that potion? It isn´t just a painkiller, is it?” the human asked him, and Ralsei knew that he couldn´t just say that he was fine.

“That potion weakens the signals your nerves send through your body…it has numbed the pain a great deal, but I´m not going to be able to do too much for as long as that potion lasts…it isn´t optimal, I know, but I needed relief of that pain…” Ralsei explained with a calm, yet weak smile. He still had to make that potion, for which something crucial was still required…

“Kris…I know that you won´t like it, but in order to make potions, we need to put some magic into the water. It can´t be any magic, however…raw magic essence directly from a soul is what makes a potion a potion, and not just some funny tasting brew…” he then explained to his friend, who looked even more concerned at his words. “How much, Ralsei? I fear that you´ll faint on the spot if you use your magic like that,” Kris asked him.

“I should be fine…I´ll be very tired once everything is done, but that´ll just help me sleep. Over sleeping, magic energy restores the best…if I just take a good nap, I´ll be fine by tomorrow again,” Ralsei tried to calm his friend down, and it seemed to work to some extent. “Alright, I´ll take your word for it. But only use as much as it is ultimately necessary, please,” Kris replied, and offered Ralsei his hand to help him stand up again.

The fluffy prince slowly extended his hand, and Kris grabbed it and slowly pulled him up again, he probably knew that the grip of the goat monster wasn´t going to be tight enough to reliably stand up on his own. Once he had made sure that Ralsei stood mostly balanced, Kris went back to and finally ignited the firewood underneath the cauldron. While this happened, Ralsei closed his eyes again and focused on the energy within his soul.

After some time, he felt himself getting weaker as his energy was drained, and when he opened his eyes again he was able to see the energy descending into the water from his soul in the form of tiny white orbs, as if his soul was a cloud and snow came falling from it like he had read in his books about the Light World. “Alright, now for the ingredients,” Ralsei tiredly mumbled, but Kris put a hand on his shoulder. They looked at each other, and Ralsei knew what his friend was going to say and do.

“You´ve already done enough, just tell me what to do and I´ll do it for you. You deserve some rest,” the human told him, it was obvious to Ralsei that he couldn´t object. He simply nodded and walked over to the nearest wall, leaning against it and sliding down until he sat on the ground again. “I´ve arranged the ingredients in the order they have to be put in from right to left…as you put the first one in, flip that hourglass on the wall over,” he explained to his friend, who looked at the wall Ralsei was sitting at. In the middle of it an hourglass was mounted, which could be flipped over by turning it. On the hourglass were several black marks, indicating how much time had passed by.

“Alright, when will I have to put the other ones in?” Kris wanted to know, holding the first ingredient, a few herbs, over the cauldron. The water slowly started to boil. “I´ll look at the time and tell you…I have it memorized in my head,” Ralsei replied, and Kris simply nodded and threw the first ingredient into the water. The dark prince looked at the hourglass…one mark, two marks… “Now the next one, and stir a bit after putting it in with that ladle next to the cauldron,” he instructed, and Kris did as he was told to.

The process of brewing the potion was done in silence, broken only by Ralsei giving instructions every now and then. He would have loved to talk more to Kris, but he was just too tired and exhausted to converse on a reasonable level. After Kris had put the last ingredient in and stirred for a good bit, Ralsei slowly stood up again and walked to the shelf where empty glass bottles stood. He took one out and made his way back to the cauldron, where Kris waited for his friend to arrive.

“Okay Kris, now we need to let the hourglass run out, and once it does, we need to go in with the bottle and fill it with the liquid…” Ralsei explained, and he earned a questioning look from Kris. “Isn´t that going to be hot? Shouldn´t we wait until it has cooled down?” he wanted to know, a question Ralsei had expected to hear.

“The potion will only remain effective under one of two conditions. It has either got to be hot, or immediately put into a sealed container so that it won´t come into contact with too much air. That´s why we always put them into flasks and seal them afterwards, because otherwise the effect would go away again,” he explained to his friend.

“Okay, I understand…let me guess: under normal circumstances, you would have a spell that protects against the heat?” Kris wanted to know as he took another empty bottle from the shelf. “Well, yes. We might still have a potion in storage that offers immunity to heat and fire, if I remember correctly…” Ralsei answered as he thought about it, but Kris´ head quickly turned towards the hourglass, which had completely run through as he had spoken.

“No time for that, I fear,” Kris said with a determined expression and quickly put the bottle into the hot liquid inside of the cauldron, and Ralsei could see that he was clenching his teeth as to not cry from the pain he had to endure. He quickly took the full flask out again and grabbed the one Ralsei was holding, diving it into the liquid as well and pulling it out afterwards. Ralsei made haste to seal them up with corks, and put them aside.

“Ralsei, cover your ears for a bit,” Kris said with an expression that told Ralsei to not ask or object, so he did as he was requested, and once Kris saw that he had his ears covered, he seemed to scream out in pain, followed by several words he seemed to be shouting. And Ralsei would have bet money that what he was saying was so bad that it would have even made Susie cover her ears.

The dark prince knew from his knowledge from his books that cold water wasn´t the solution, but rather warm one. Luckily, the flow of water had warm water in it, as the temperature of the river was always mild enough for even babies to bathe in it without complaints. Still covering his ears as Kris was still shouting, he walked over to him and nudged him into the direction of the flow of water, and as they stood next to the stream, Ralsei quickly took his hands off his ears and grabbed the arm of Kris that was affected, plunging it into the cooler liquid.

“Ah…oh my…that´s better…” Kris panted as he seemed to calm down, still keeping his hand in the water. “Thanks, Ralsei, but I didn´t want you to hear what I just said. You would have jumped out of your fur if you had heard that, trust me,” he then said to his friend, who simply smiled at him with a compassionate smile. “Don´t worry, it´s over now. I have something up in my room that can help with burns; I have burnt myself at the oven a few times, so I decided to make it. It´s convenient when you don´t have the capabilities to heal yourself with magic,” Ralsei replied as he remembered a salve that he kept under his bed for a case like this.

“That would be great…next time we could plan this whole thing out just a bit better, don´t you think so as well?” Kris asked with a painful grin. Ralsei had to agree that he didn´t see everything through, and as he looked at the shelves, he eventually saw the red potion that would have helped them. “Well, we still need to make another potion, don´t we? I see the heat-resistance potion on that shelf there, so you could use it the next time,” Ralsei offered, and Kris did look puzzled at first, but then the realization seemed to hit him.

“Ralsei, if you want to make a potion for me as well…you´ve already used enough of your energy, you don´t have to-“ he started, but the dark prince just lifted his hand and gestured him to stop. “Don´t worry, I have calculated the second potion when I told you that I was going to be fine. Besides, you should be more concerned about your own health right now,” Ralsei answered, and walked to the second cauldron. To his surprise, it was still filled with water, most likely from a long time ago.

“So, which potion did you want?” he wanted to know, and Kris seemed to think about it. “I think the one that makes you more nimble. Speed is probably the most crucial thing you should have when dealing with Jevil,” Kris replied after some time, to which Ralsei nodded in agreement. “Do you have the list of ingredients in your notebook?” he asked his friend who still had his hand under water.

“Yes, it´s in my pocket. I really hope that you are going to be fine after making the potion, you look quite exhausted right now…” Kris replied with a concerned look on his face. Ralsei walked over to him and put his arm around Kris´ shoulders, smiling at him. “You don´t have to worry about me all the time, I know how much I can take. Besides, you can´t stop me from trying to help you, I´ll let nothing stand in the way of that,” he said to his friend, who seemed to blush just a tiny bit at his words.

“I don´t know what I have done to deserve you, Ralsei, but it must have been a ton of good stuff…alright then, here,” Kris sighed in defeat, and took his notebook out of his pocket with his spare hand. Ralsei took it with a smile and read through the notes, gathering the necessary ingredients in the storage room shortly afterwards. He knew that it was going to be difficult for him to not mess up the potion with him being both tired from using magic and feeling numb thanks to the potion, but he was going to see it through.

He carefully looked at Kris, and as his friend was looking away for a bit, he used his fire magic to ignite the firewood after having pretended to use the flint and stone. He felt very tired by now; he was secretly hoping that he was going to stay awake when using his magic on the water. He put his hand flat onto his chest again and released his soul, which was only glowing in a faint white light by now, evidence of how exhausted his pool of energy was.

He concentrated and let the magic essence descend from it again, forcing himself to stay awake in the progress. As the process was done, his soul only emitted the dimmest, most faint glow possible, but he was still awake, though just barely. Ralsei called his soul back to his body again, and as the water started to boil, he read through Kris´ notes again. It took him all of his focus to properly read the steps, but he managed to do it, fuelled by the sheer determination of making something for Kris.

As he put the first ingredient into the water, he slowly stepped over to the hourglass and flipped it over again, counting the black marks just like before. Ingredient after ingredient was thrown into the water, and it didn´t take too long before he was preparing himself to get the potion into flasks. He walked over to the shelves and took two empty bottles, which he put down next to the cauldron. The next thing he did was taking the red potion he needed from the shelf, and downing its content. He knew that it wasn´t entirely risk-free to drink several potions in a short amount of time, but he didn´t care if it meant that Kris got his potion.

As the hourglass ran out, he put the flask into the cauldron and took it out again, now filled to the top. He quickly put a cork on it and repeated the procedure with the second flask, luckily not suffering any harm from the hot liquid as he had the heat-resistance potion working against it. He sat down next to the cauldron, now truly exhausted and barely keeping his eyes open.

“Ralsei? You still awake over there?” he heard someone ask. He looked into the direction the voice had come from, and saw Kris approaching him with what seemed to be a worried expression on his face. “Barely,” the dark prince mumbled, and he felt Kris kneel down next to him and put his unharmed hand onto his right shoulder. “I´ll bring you to your room. You look like you are going to fall asleep on the floor within a few minutes,” Kris told him, and the tone in his voice left no room for objection. Not that Ralsei wanted to object, he was too tired to do so.

He nodded and took the potions they had made, putting them under his arms and taking them into his hands so that he was able to carry all four flasks. He then stood up, slowly, and Kris helped him a bit by pulling him upwards by grabbing his robe by his neck. Kris then put his arm around the fluffy prince, and together they slowly walked over to the stairs, beginning their ascent. They hadn´t brought the candle with them this time, but with how slowly they were going, they were able to feel for the steps and take them one at a time.

Luckily for them, the door to the corridor had been left open, so they saw their destination before long. They stepped into the corridor again, from where Kris led his friend directly to his room. Ralsei on the other hand tried his hardest not to fall asleep right then and there, forcing himself to keep his eyes open. The door to Ralsei´s room soon was before them, so Kris pushed it open and brought Ralsei inside. Navigating him to his bed, the human let Ralsei slowly sit down on the bed, from where he took the potions away one by one from the dark prince, putting them onto the table.

“Before you fall asleep, Ralsei, I´ll have to bother you for a bit again. Where was that salve you talked about again?” Kris wanted to know. “Under the bed…green, round glass…” Ralsei was able to reply as he slowly pieced together the answer in his head. His friend looked under the bed and eventually pulled the item he had described out from under it. Kris took the glass container and put it onto the bed next to Ralsei´s left, sitting down next to it afterwards.

“Alright, do I just need to apply it?” he asked, but Ralsei just smiled a bit and opened the glass, taking a good bit of the salve into his hands. “Yes, but hard to do with only one hand…I´ll help you…” the fluffy prince brought out, and before Kris could object, he started applying it all over his hand. His friend sharply took in a breath as the injury at first seemed to hurt a lot at Ralsei´s touch, but then slowly started to breathe out as the cooling effect of the medicine seemed to work.

“Whoa, that´s…incredible,” Ralsei heard him say, much to his relief. He knew of the effect of the salve all too well, and he too was surprised at how quickly it cooled the wound, just as how quickly it healed it within a few hours. “Yeah…it´s a really good treatment for things like that…glad that I could help…” the dark prince answered, on the verge of falling asleep. Kris did seem to notice that, and quickly stood up and put the glass the salve was in onto the table. The human then gently pushed Ralsei´s legs onto the bed and turned him so that his back pointed towards the pillows. He put one hand against Ralsei´s back afterwards to ensure that he wouldn´t just fall, and with his other, now better one, he grabbed his shoulder and slowly pushed him backwards, forcing him to slowly lie down on his bed.

Ralsei´s head soon touched the pillow, and Kris proceeded with pulling the sheets up to his chin, tucking him in nicely. It was too much for the little goat monster, he quickly felt sleep coming over him. “Good night, my prince. Sleep well…” was the last thing that he was able to hear. He closed his eyes, darkness coming over him. “Good night, Kris…” he could mumble before beginning to fall asleep.

Ralsei awoke on the highest tower of his castle. He knew the location very well, as he was used to sing on it when he felt like doing so. How he ended up here, however, was a mystery to him. He looked around, even more surprised to see Kris standing on the tower with him…but he wasn´t facing Ralsei, standing at the edge of the tower.

“K-Kris? Why are we up here?” Ralsei asked with a shaky voice. For a reason unknown to him, he had a feeling that something terrible was about to happen. “Haven´t I told you already? We are here so that I can end all of this,” the human replied without looking his way, but Ralsei was very able to hear the defeated voice of his friend…a voice indicating a total loss of hope and happiness.

“Wh-what do you mean? I am scared, Kris…” the dark prince asked again, his voice shaking even more. The human on the other side of the tower just lowered his head, and sighed. “Let´s face it: we have to find Jevil, defeat him, bring him back to Seam and then get him to cure you of that curse. All within a few days, while you keep growing weaker and are subject to potential outbursts…it´s hopeless, Ralsei. We won´t pull it off. I am going to lose you, without me being able to do anything about it. I have made a decision,” he explained and Ralsei had a sudden moment of panic. He knew that whatever Kris was going to do, it was going to have a terrible outcome.

He wanted to run, run for his friend and hug him, assure him that they were able to make it as a team…but it was as if his feet were glued to the floor, he wasn´t able to move an inch from his position. “I don´t want to see you suffer anymore, Ralsei. And I wouldn´t be able to live my life anywhere close to happy if I lost you…so I won´t live my life anymore…” Kris said, and Ralsei was able to hear how saddened the human was.

“N-no, Kris! Don´t do this, please! We can pull through this, you promised me we would”! Ralsei shouted at him, tears in his eyes. Kris finally turned his head around, and Ralsei was able to see streams of tears running down the face of his friend. “I was a fool making that promise, then…” he whispered, and climbed onto the stones that prevented them from falling off.

“KRIS, STOP! Stay with me, I LOVE YOU!” Ralsei shouted in desperation, uncontrollable tears running down his face. The human looked at him one final time. “Then it´s better this way…I love you too, but you will pass away in a few days…it would only hurt more that way…goodbye, my one and true loved one…” he said with absolution and sorrow, before taking one step forward into nothing. As his body started to fall, Ralsei was finally able to move, and ran to the edge of the tower, looking after the falling body of the one person he loved.

“KRIS!” he shouted after him, nothing but pure desperation clinging at his heart. “Ralsei!” How could this have happened…it was as if Kris had only been trying to assure himself that it was going to work out…and now he was gone forever, and Ralsei had no chance of getting over the curse…

“Ralsei!” He looked around as he noticed the voice. It sounded like Kris´, but he had just jumped off the tower…something wasn´t right. “Ralsei, wake up, dammit!” There was the voice again, and he suddenly was shook heavily. He closed his eyes, and felt something soft beneath him, just as the shaking intensified. He quickly opened his eyes again, confused to see Kris kneeling next to him on the bed and looking at him with a deeply concerned look.

“Thank goodness, you´re awake. You must have had a terrible nightmare; you were kicking around in your bed and mumbling things…” the human said, seemingly relieved to see him being awake. Was that it? A nightmare? “Just a nightmare?” Ralsei asked, just to be sure. The things that he had told Kris in that dream though…that he loved him…it was the truth, wasn´t it?

“Yes, just a nightmare. I´m here with you, Ralsei,” Kris assured him, and Ralsei flung himself at his friend, crying tears of joy because he had thought to have forever lost him. The human took him into a tight hug, holding him while Ralsei let his emotions run loose. “Please, Kris…don´t you ever leave me…” the fluffy prince sobbed, which made Kris pat his shoulder and nuzzle his head against Ralsei´s.

“I´ll be with you as much as I can, but I´ll have to go to the Light World again at some point…” Kris said, but Ralsei interrupted him. This wasn´t what he meant… “No Kris, please don´t leave me for good…please don´t make me say a final ‘goodbye’…” Ralsei begged him, bringing Kris to a stop. Had he surprised him that much with this outburst?

“Ralsei, you silly little thing…” his friend chuckled a bit. Was he making fun of him? “I wouldn´t ever do something like that, no matter what´s to come. You are the best thing to have ever happened to me; I won´t give that away, for nothing in this entire world,” Kris whispered into his ear, letting heat shoot into Ralsei´s face, but also calming him down again.

“Y-you mean that, Kris?” he asked his friend who kept hugging him, more tears forming in his eyes. Did he really deserve so much kindness? Kris backed his head off and used one hand to fluff the fur on Ralsei´s head with an amused smile. “Of course I do! Ralsei, I wouldn´t be here if you weren´t that important to me,” his friend replied, which caused Ralsei to close the distance for another tight hug.

“Thank you…” he whispered next to Kris´ head, the tears slowly coming to an end. “Always there for you, Ralsei…” Kris answered, and they both sat there in silence, locked into hugging each other. After what seemed like an eternity, Kris spoke up again. “So, do you feel comfortable enough to sleep again? It´s still well into the night, you haven´t been sleeping for long.”

“I think so, yes…I just hope that I won´t have another nightmare,” Ralsei replied as the two of them slowly ended the hug. Then he saw it. That smile on Kris´ face, a smile that told him exactly what he had in mind right then. “Would it help if I slept next to you, so that I could chase your nightmares away?” he offered with a faint blush on his face, but Ralsei´s had to be several times worse, judging by how hot his face felt.

 _“YES! A thousand, no, a million times YES!”_ was the only thing on Ralsei´s mind, but he restrained himself to not make it obvious. Whatever his nightmare was, it had showed one truth that he wasn´t able to deny anymore: the very human in front of him, Kris, was the one person he had fallen in love with. “I-if it doesn´t bother you…I´d appreciate that…” Ralsei whispered, which Kris answered by taking Ralsei´s hat and putting it down next to the ground, as it was still on the other half of the bed. He then gestured Ralsei to lie down again, which he did, he was still tired after all. And it seemed as if Kris had no problems with sleeping in one bed with him.

Kris then crawled over to Ralsei and lied down on the bed as well just next to him, resting his head on one of the pillows and covering himself with Ralsei´s blanket as well. “The day this would bother me will be the day the apocalypse starts, trust me. This is fine by me, Ralsei,” he then said, and put his arm over the fluffy prince, pulling himself tighter towards him. Ralsei didn´t mind it at all, and just enjoyed the feeling of Kris hugging him like that, as well as the very presence of him right next to him.

“Comfortable like this?” Kris asked him, but Ralsei only barely heard it, as he was about to fall asleep again with Kris now next to him. “Mhm…” he was able to mumble, feeling the warmth of his bed, his blanket, Kris…it was tiring him even more, and Ralsei could feel himself fading away into the depths of sleep again.

“Don´t forget…I´ll always be with you, no matter how dark the times ahead of us are,” he heard Kris whisper next to him, and he just took Kris´ hand into his own, squeezing it just a bit before falling asleep.


	4. Reuniting The Gang

Ralsei awoke feeling a comfortable presence around him, lulling him into a sense of security. He also felt warmth at the front of his body, as well as around his side and back for a small part. He had turned to the side while sleeping, but it was then that something pleasant came to his mind in shape of a memory; the memory of someone sleeping next to him. He slightly opened his eyes, seeing another face inches away from his own. Kris was still sleeping, the hair covering his eyes brushed aside for a change, but while sleeping they had to have taken Ralsei into a tight hug, as he had his arms wrapped around him.

Ralsei also noticed that he had his arms around Kris´ body as well, and he felt a lot of heat rush to his face as he realized how this whole scene had to look from someone else´s perspective. Luckily nobody was with them in his castle; he had Kris to him and himself only. Under normal circumstances Ralsei would have gotten up and prepared breakfast, but he didn´t want to risk waking his friend up, especially when considering how nice it felt to be hugged like that. The dark prince stayed where he was, enjoying the mere presence of Kris in front of him, smiling a bit as he realized how lucky he was to have Kris in his life.

He didn´t know how much time had passed, but he didn´t care much about it, not while Kris was so close to him. Ralsei had to admit one thing as well: his friend wasn´t someone he would describe as cute-looking; but now that he saw him sleeping and could actually see his eyes, even though they were closed, he couldn´t help but see him as looking really cute like that. Kris suddenly pulled him into a tighter hug, surprising Ralsei and bringing his face even closer to the one of his friend, their noses almost touching.

What he was also able to see was a slight smile on Kris´ face, as if he subconsciously knew that he was hugging Ralsei like that. Ralsei had never thought that he would one day end up like this with Kris, but he had almost no reason to complain…apart from the whole thing with the curse and his life depending on whether they found Jevil and got him to cure him, of course. As that thought came to his mind, he noticed the pain inside of his heart again; it had grown stronger again because the potion´s effect was slowly running out, but he was still able to tolerate it.

Ralsei assumed that the potion was going to last for maybe one hour if he was lucky, and decided that it was best to create a pain-killing potion in advance. Thanks to having slept really well after the nightmare, he was able to feel the magic energy pulsing inside of his soul. “Hmm…good morning…” he could suddenly hear right in front of him, snapping his mind out of his thoughts back to reality. Kris was awake by now, looking at him with a tired smile.

 _“O-Oh…they´re more beautiful than I could have imagined…”_ Ralsei thought as he realized that he was able to see Kris´ eyes for the first time in their full beauty; two shining red jewels emitting a warm light. The human slowly took one arm away from Ralsei, and carefully pulled the other one out from under the dark prince, stretching himself afterwards. He took his arms away from Kris as well, very aware of how badly he had to have been blushing this whole time.

“Is something wrong?” Kris asked after a long yawn, but Ralsei just couldn´t look away from the beauty that were his eyes. “N-No, everything´s fine. I feel much better now,” Ralsei quickly answered with the best smile he could muster. Kris seemed to believe him though, as he sat up and rubbed his eyes for a bit, before going through his hair with both hands, bringing it into a position so that his eyes were covered again.

“I just realized that I had never seen your eyes before…a bit funny, don´t you think so?” Ralsei brought up as he sat up as well, throwing the sheets off of him. “Oh…well, I don´t really show my eyes to others anymore…everyone has been scared by how they looked to them, and I have to admit that they really…stand out, I guess,” Kris replied while looking away, as if he feared what Ralsei thought about them.

“They do seem quite unnatural, I´ll admit. But I really like the look of them, I don´t think that you should hide them like that,” he replied, hoping to not say too much…he loved how Kris´ eyes looked, to him it displayed how much power the soul of Kris wielded, while also emitting calmness, kindness and a sense of mystery. All those were things that Ralsei liked, and those being combined into Kris only made it more perfect to him.

“Do…do you really think so? You aren´t just being the polite and humble fluffy prince that you are, but you are really honest with what you said?” Kris wanted to know, and looked at Ralsei again. Every fibre in the dark prince wanted to hug him, brush the hair away from his eyes and stare into the deep red that he had witnessed for all of eternity, but he restrained himself. He was still uncertain on what Kris thought of him…sure, he had said that Ralsei was the best thing to have ever happened to him, but that didn´t say to what extend he liked the goat monster.

“Yes, I have never seen anything like it before, it is really fascinating. And I think that it looks quite good on you,” Ralsei assured him, but swallowed a ‘just like you do’ with force. He had to be careful to not just bluntly say what he felt for Kris…he feared what possibly could happen if he just said it out loud and clear in this moment…he needed more clarity, but gaining information without them becoming suspicious was another difficult task…

“In this case…” Kris began, and brushed the hair covering his eyes aside again, revealing them, much to Ralsei´s joy, “I will try and wear my hair like this. If there is only one person that likes it that way, then that is enough for me.” Ralsei looked into his eyes as he smiled at him, the warmth coming from these two gems threatening to melt him away…

“Anyways, we wanted to leave early today, so I´d better hurry and get Susie,” Kris said as he stood up from the bed, leaving Ralsei somewhat sad, but he knew that it was for the better. He would have loved to stay like this with Kris for as long as it was possible, but if he wasn´t going to focus on getting Jevil back to Seam, then that ‘for as long as possible’ would turn into a ‘for three days’, and he wasn´t ready for it to end so soon. Besides, helping Seam to maybe find joy in life again was something he sincerely wanted to do as well, so Ralsei swiftly jumped out of his bed.

Kris walked over to his side of the bed with his hat in hand, and handed it to the fluffy prince. “I guess it is time for me to go, I still need to reach Card Castle after all,” Kris said while smiling, though there seemed to be something else in his voice…Ralsei couldn´t identify it however, and instead took the hat out of Kris´ hand.

“Well, have you ever tried leaving through the fountain in my castle? It should work just as fine, so you won´t have to go far. Besides, I need to make a new potion so that the pain will be tolerable for me, I can already feel the effect from yesterday wearing off…will you help me and fill the cauldron with water again? I can do everything else on my own,” Ralsei suggested, and Kris looked like he thought about it for a second before answering.

“Well, I can´t deny you that request. And if it turns out that the fountain in your castle can bring us back all the same, then it´s good like that as well,” his friend answered. Ralsei nodded at the answer, and with swift steps walked out of his room to the staircase leading down to the brewing chamber. The two of them walked down the steps in silence, and as it became too dark to see, Ralsei released his soul for them to have a source of light. Now that his energy was restored, it was glowing quite bright again, though the glow was dampened by the black cracks on it.

Ralsei didn´t pay attention to his soul, for it was something he didn´t want to see right now. The sooner he was cured of what the Spade King had done to him, the better. He and Kris soon reached the end of the stairs, the chamber looking exactly how they had left it. The candles were almost burnt out; Ralsei knew that he had to replace them soon. The two went over to one of the cauldrons, and Ralsei pointed to a gutter in the floor which would get any liquids out of the castle.

“Okay, we first need to empty it into the gutter, and then refill it with water. Is that okay with you?” Ralsei asked his friend, who chuckled at his question. “I wouldn´t stand here if this wasn´t okay with me, silly,” Kris replied, and Ralsei´s face went red…he hadn´t thought about it like that. He focused back on his task and stood next to the cauldron, grabbing the handle with both of his hands.

With their combined efforts, they took it off the hook and brought it over to the gutter in the floor, where they emptied the content into. After they took a short break, they carried it over to the stream of water and put it inside of it, letting the cauldron fill up. They then took it out of the water again and slowly walked over to the fireplace again, where they lifted the heavy object onto the hook.

“Phew, thank you…now then, I guess I´ll show you to the fountain. Follow me,” Ralsei instructed, and went back to the stairs, just to notice that Kris didn´t follow him immediately. “Is something wrong, Kris?” he wanted to know, worried that there was something on his friend´s mind. “I´m not too content with leaving you like this to make a potion, it tires you out quite a bit after all,” the human said after a moment of silence, and directed his eyes at the ones of Ralsei, a worried look on his face. _“Those eyes…”_

“D-don´t worry about me, Kris. I have slept really well, and can feel that my energy has come back, so I shouldn´t be too bothered by making the potion. Besides, I can still get some rest after I have made the potion while I wait for you and Susie to arrive here,” he tried to calm the human, and it seemed to have worked, as the worried look disappeared from their face to be replaced by a warm smile. “Alright then, I guess you´re right. Might prove difficult to get Susie to go that early, since she is used to sleep well into the day, but I think I can get her down here quick enough,” he answered as he walked towards the stairs.

Ralsei took the lead again as they walked the stairs back up, guided by the light emitted by his soul. Before long, they had reached the corridor again, from where Ralsei walked into the direction of the castle´s entrance, followed by Kris. The dark prince took a turn to the right just before reaching the stairs leading to the main entrance, where they reached another set of stairs, though it was only a short one. The stairs ended in a dead end, with only a double-door to the right marking another way out.

Ralsei pushed the doors open and stepped outside into the interior garden of the castle, an area he liked to visit every so often. It wasn´t too big, but big enough for him to create artwork using various flowers. The garden was divided into four separate squares, with a pathway in-between each of them, leading from the centre to the outer pathway which went in a circle around the area. In the middle of the garden, where the four pathways met, stood a fountain with a statue of a smiling Ralsei; pouring water from his hands that were stretched out sideways, letting it flow into the pool underneath him.

“Whoa, you had THIS hidden from me all the time? This area is wonderful,” Kris said in awe as he looked around the area, causing Ralsei to blush again. He hadn´t considered showing the garden to him, even though he had put a lot of effort into making it. He watched in joy as Kris walked around the area, looking at the four divided areas with different creative artworks in them.

The first one was rather simple; a black heart just like Ralsei had on his robe, but he liked it nonetheless. The second one was a picture of the Fun-Gang, entirely made out of flowers. It had taken Ralsei a lot of time to correctly arrange the flowers, as he paid attention to details and made rather large versions of each member. He had added Lancer as well, standing next to the group with his familiar grin. The third area had a self-portrait of Ralsei in it, with his robe and hat on. It filled out the entire area, and it was something he was quite proud of.

“They all look really good, Ralsei. But why is the fourth area empty?” Kris said to him, but then pointed at the last area he hadn´t created anything in yet. “Well, I don´t know what to create in there yet. I want to make it something special, so when I see something worthy of being there, I will get to work,” he replied truthfully, but he secretly knew what he wanted to be there: a portrait of him and Kris together, with a few red hearts between the two of them as they are holding hands.

Maybe, if Ralsei really was as lucky enough to find out that Kris felt the same way about him as he felt towards Kris, even if it could still take a long time to win his heart, he was able to create this perfect image. For now it was still a wish, one that he didn´t know if it would come true or not, as Kris rarely spoke about how he felt. “If that´s the case, then I hope that you´ll find it someday. I´d be happy to see what you will create here,” Kris answered with a smile, and turned towards the fountain in the middle of the whole area.

“This whole garden…it must´ve taken you a lot of effort to make it this way. You can be proud of yourself, Ralsei,” he said as he walked towards it, stopping in front of it and looking at the statue on top of it. “I really am, Kris. And while it took a lot of effort, it was a great task to do…a nice change, given that my life was pretty monotone before you fell down,” Ralsei replied, and he was really glad that Kris liked his garden…but it also brought back a slightly sour taste in his mouth, thinking about his past before he had Kris in his life.

“The past is the past, the present and future are what is important. And I believe that the future looks brighter than ever, especially for the two of us. You and I have finally found great friends, we have become even greater friends. I really think that you are brightening my future, Ralsei,” Kris said in a comforting voice, and Ralsei´s face immediately became hot at his words.

“S-Stop flustering me like this, I…I´m not used to receiving that many compliments…especially not ones of this magnitude…” he brought out as he pulled his hat deep into his face, he didn´t want to know how strong the blush on his face actually was. “Oh man, you are so adorable when you´re like this…but I fear that I still have to return to the Light World,” Kris said with a chuckle at first, but then let out a small sigh. The heat slowly left the dark prince´s face, and he took his hat out of his face again, just to see something new in Kris´ eyes: pure determination.

“Ralsei, please lead me to the fountain. I think it is time we found Jevil and got him back to his senses again,” he said with resolution, being the leader that Ralsei had learned to respect. Setting the hat on his head right, Ralsei gave a firm nod and went to the other side of the garden than they had entered through, walking to another door. He pushed it open and stepped through, entering a round open area with the fountain in the middle of it. Kris stepped next to him, and put a hand onto his shoulder.

“Ralsei…I will make sure to return as quickly as I can, I´ll have to calm my mom and get Susie down here. Be careful while I´m gone, and only use your magic as much as you really need to…we only have two flasks of that potion, and if you need another potion to lessen the pain, we won´t have time to make another one. Promise me that you´ll be reasonable with this,” he pleaded as he looked Ralsei straight into the eyes, and even though it took him all of his effort, he resisted falling into a trance of looking into the red jewels that were the human´s eyes.

“Alright Kris, I promise. I will only use my magic for that potion, and if there is time, I will rest afterwards,” Ralsei answered, knowing that Kris was serious about this whole situation. He seemed to be satisfied with that answer, and took Ralsei into a tight hug, one that Ralsei gladly returned. After some time, Kris let go and looked at the fountain, nodding again.

Ralsei let go of him as well, and his friend stepped forward, the light of his own soul becoming visible as it engulfed the body of the human. “Until later, Ralsei,” Kris shouted before he was lifted into the air, and a bright flash that the dark prince had to look away from later he was gone. Now that he was gone, Ralsei sat on the ground, a tear leaving his right eye. He went to wipe it away, but the pain inside of his heart suddenly stung way stronger than before, making him flinch.

It wasn´t fair that Kris had to go, he was so angry at the circumstances…perhaps he should just go to the Spade King and tell him what he really felt about all of this, maybe underlining his statement with some fire magic so that it would leave a good impression on the old monarch…

Ralsei used all of his might to regain his composure, he panted a lot as he slowly took control of his mind again…this hate inside of him, it was dangerous. The pain grew weaker again, but Ralsei knew that he could very easily lose control over himself again…and these dark thoughts, they sent a shiver down his spine. The dark prince stood up again and left the area, walking back through the garden into his castle to fulfil his own task. The faster they had cured his curse, the better it was for everyone.

Ralsei walked back to the brewing chamber, climbing down the stairs with his mind focused on the adventure ahead. Finding Jevil was going to be difficult enough on its own, and getting the crazed jester to cure him was another task that they could have trouble with. He was most likely going to play his ‘game’ with them again, and given how they had barely managed to best him in his cell, he couldn´t be too sure that they were going to survive the next fight with him.

Guided by the light of his soul, he reached the chamber soon afterwards and went into the supply room, taking out the ingredients that he was going to need. The potion from yesterday had almost worn off; he was able to feel the curse hurting him stronger than ever, and he didn´t even want to imagine what amounts of pain he would have to suffer as the curse progressed. Ralsei put the ingredients next to the cauldron and let his soul hover above the water inside of it, releasing the magic essence contained within what made him the being that he was.

It tired him, it hurt him, but he was determined to keep going and reach a happy end, now that he had Kris in his life. He was not going to sit and watch as the curse slowly destroyed him, he was going to beat it back with the help of his friends. Ralsei opened his eyes again as he had poured enough magic into the cauldron, looking at his corrupted soul. The black cracks had grown a bit bigger, covering maybe two fifths of it. It was the sign that time was working against them, but he was determined to win this race. He knew the levels of determination humans were able to reach, but monsters were able to be determined as well. And with Kris by his side his determination had no boundaries, that was something Ralsei knew.

He recalled his soul back to his body, and went to the supply room to gather new firewood, as they had burnt the firewood under the cauldron down while making the potions yesterday. Gathering enough to make it last for the creation of the potion, he then returned to the cauldron and knelt down next to it, putting the dry logs under the metallic object. Ralsei then stretched his hands out and held them above the logs, focusing on the energy inside of him. Warmth started to flow from his heart into his arms, carrying over to his hands, where it left his body in the form of magical fire, quickly igniting the firewood. He again felt more exhausted and a strong sting in his heart as he cast the magic, but he knew that it was better to hurry so that he was properly able to prepare himself for the adventure up ahead.

Ralsei opened his eyes again as the pain inside of his heart grew weaker, standing up and taking the first bunch of ingredients into his hands. He knew the recipe for the potion from his memory, and once the water had started to boil, he threw the ingredients in and flipped the hourglass on the wall over. It was strange, to brew a potion down here on his own…a few hours ago, he had done so with Kris by his side, concerned about every step Ralsei had taken that had a bad effect…a smile appeared on the face of the dark prince as he knew that he was going to be able to make more potions with his friend once this incident had been resolved. He was especially looking forward to the special potion that he had thought about the day before, his ultimate gift to Kris…the formula hidden away right in front of the human´s eyes some time ago, in the fountain that he had admired…

Ralsei focused back on reality and counted the marks on the hourglass, tossing ingredients into the cauldron at certain points and mixing and stirring the liquid and ingredients every so often. It wasn´t long before he had every ingredient mixed in and took an empty flask from the shelf, walking over to the cauldron again and waiting for the sand to run through the hourglass. Ralsei prepared himself and channelled his magic energy again, this time focusing it onto his hands. The fire magic started to circulate through his hands as a protective orange aura appeared around them, leaving them immune to heat for as long as he was able to keep the spell up.

The dark prince watched the hourglass and waited for the time to get the potion out of the cauldron, and he quickly put the flask into the liquid when the last bit of sand pad passed through the glass. Once he had sealed it with a cork he quickly took from the shelf, he repeated the procedure with another flask he quickly took from the shelf, and then put his hands into the cooler water stream in the room before dispelling his protection, after which he tiredly sank to the ground to recover. He had certainly spent a lot of energy in that short amount of time, so it was going to be best if he rested until his friends arrived. Ralsei slowly stood up and took the flasks with the potion with him, climbing the stairs back up to the corridor.

He then headed to his room, thinking about all of the possible outcomes of what was to come. The worst-case scenario would be what he dreaded the most: everyone was going to fall to the chaos of Jevil, as he was easily the most powerful opponent they had faced during their adventure. Another bad outcome would be that they weren´t able to cure him in time…Ralsei shivered at the thought of the curse slowly ending his life.

But then the good outcomes: they were able to cure Ralsei and everything returned to normal, even better would be that they were able to bring Jevil to his senses and maybe even some happiness into the life of Seam again. The best outcome of course would be the prior good outcomes combined, as well as to find out that Kris…liked him the same way that he liked the human. His heart, though still aching, started beating quicker as he thought about Kris again…everything about this Lightner seemed too perfect for Ralsei to be true; he could only hope that he was even remotely good enough for Kris…

He entered his room and closed the door again, putting the flasks with the potion onto the table next to the other ones afterwards. The fluffy prince took his hat off again and walked over to one of the shelves, where he took a book he hadn´t read yet and walked to his armchair with it. Ralsei put the hat down next to it before sitting down on the furniture, relaxing before opening up the book. He always loved a good story, and quickly became attached to books and other stories.

Three firm knocks on the door in quick succession echoing through the halls, an unmistakable sign of who was at the door...it was a bit eerie, he had to admit, that knocks on the front door would echo through the castle, but at least he was always able to hear if someone wanted to gain entry. Ralsei looked up from his book…how long had it been now? He didn´t know, he had been too entranced by the story of the book…but because of how relaxed he had been, he also felt new energy inside of him. His energy wasn´t fully restored, but it was definitely enough for him to use some of his spells if the need came to be.

He stood up and put the book onto his armchair, and took his hat from where he had placed it before grabbing the potions. He went over to his closet and took a small bag out which he put the flasks into, after which he left his room. The dark prince walked through the empty hallways towards the door that marked the entrance to his castle, and took a deep breath before opening the door. There he stood, right in front of him; Kris with his warm smile and those shining red eyes, next to Susie in her usual appearance, though she seemed to look at Ralsei with a look that could, after some time, resemble that of a hint of compassion.

“Hey there, Ralsei. Heard you´re in a pretty messed up situation, and we got to save you from it. I always knew that we´d have to pull you out of danger at some point, but I guess I didn´t see THAT coming,” the purple monster greeted him, blunt and straight to the point as always. Ralsei felt a bit uneasy as she put it that way, but he was glad that she was willing to help him. “Hey Ralsei, do you have the potions we made with you?” Kris asked him, and the one questioned turned his attention to the human.

“Yes, I have them in this little bag here. They should help us on our adventure, but the question is: where should we start? Jevil could be anywhere after all…” Ralsei replied, but then realised that they had no clue as to where the jester was at this moment. Was this supposed to be a failure right at the start? “I think we should go to Card Castle and ask Lancer, maybe his troops have noticed anything…’chaotic’ while they were patrolling,” Kris suggested, and Ralsei had to admit that that was the best bet they had. Finding Jevil without help was going to be exhausting and potentially fruitless.

“Why does it have to be Jevil…anyone else would have been fine, I don´t want to deal with that guy again,” Susie groaned in annoyance. Jevil had been the only one so far who had come close to defeating the party, and though she wouldn´t admit it, Ralsei assumed that she secretly was a bit afraid of facing the clown again. He too wasn´t looking forward to another fight with him, both because he didn´t like to fight and also because of how dangerous Jevil was.

“He is one of the only two people who can cure Ralsei, and the King surely won´t do it. We have no other choice if we want to save him,” Kris reminded her in a serious tone. Susie let out one last sigh before nodding, gesturing Ralsei to follow them. “Fine then, lead the way, Kris,” she said, and settled into her usual spot behind the human. Ralsei took his place behind her, sad to not be able to stay closer to Kris, but there were more important things to worry about.

“Alright, if everyone is ready…let us go,” Kris commanded with resolution, and started walking towards the Field of Hopes and Dreams. Susie and Ralsei quickly followed their leader, though for the first few minutes no word was spoken. It seemed as if the slight tension in the air caused everyone else to think about the upcoming tasks, and Ralsei didn´t want to interrupt the silence as to not annoy the others.

“Say…what exactly is wrong with you again, Ralsei? Kris only briefly told me about it before basically dragging me here, seems to be something really severe if he dared to do that. You should have seen the look on his face, he almost looked ready to kill to get me down here as fast as possible,” Susie eventually broke the silence as they progressed through the fields. Ralsei blushed a bit as she described how Kris had been acting in the Light World, and blushed even more when Kris briefly looked back at him with a slight smile.

“W-well, the Spade King has cursed me with his hatred, so to speak. It will continue to consume both my heart and my soul, until…well, you know…” Ralsei explained to her, but didn´t want to finish the sentence. At the thought of everything, he felt the pain inside of him again…the potion from yesterday had worn off, and he could feel the hatred rampaging through his heart, a pain that hurt him so much that it brought tears to his eyes. He whimpered and pressed his hands against the source of the pain, stopping in his tracks as he couldn´t concentrate on walking like this.

He suddenly felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up; Kris stood next to him with a deeply concerned look on his face, and helped Ralsei to sit down on the ground as his legs started shaking, threatening him to lose his balance. Ralsei´s vision started to blur as more tears formed in his eyes, but everything that was on his mind was the pain. “Ralsei, can you hear me?” he could faintly hear next to him, and he forced himself to a slight nod as he recognized the voice as the one of Kris.

“Okay, then drink this, please. It´ll be better soon, I promise,” the voice next to him said as he was barely able to feel motion in the bag he carried with him, followed by something on his lips…it was cold at first, but then he felt something slightly warmer…a liquid? He slightly opened his mouth and was met with a slightly sour taste, but he drank as much of the liquid as he was able to. Soon he couldn´t feel any more at his lips, and the cold thing on them was taken away…it must have been a flask, hopefully one with the potion that would ease his pain…

And then the raging fury in his heart subsided, grew weaker. He panted as he was finally able to start thinking straight again, and he also felt a sleeve wiping the tears away from his eyes. Ralsei slowly opened his eyes, seeing Kris kneel next to him with an empty flask in his hand wearing a troubled expression. “T-thank you…” the dark prince managed to bring out, before Kris quickly hugged him. “Don´t worry, we´re by your side,” he whispered to him, but Ralsei just enjoyed this moment of peace, this moment with Kris.

“Whoa, so that´s what you´re going through? That´s rough, buddy,” Susie commented, “At least you have your fellow love bird with you to help you out.” Ralsei´s face shot full with heat at her second comment, and Kris looked at her, though he couldn´t see the human´s expression. “Well yeah, I like Ralsei and I care about him, does that immediately make me a love bird? We should focus on saving him, we have enough trouble ahead of us as it is,” Kris replied in a somewhat annoyed tone, and let go of Ralsei again. He could have sworn, however, that there was a slight blush on Kris´ face as well when he did so and gave him a warm smile, offering Ralsei a hand to help him stand up. The fluffy prince hesitated at first because of Susie´s comment, but then took the hand offered to him anyways; standing up as Kris slightly pulled him off the ground again.

“Feeling better?” Kris asked with a worried tone in his voice. Ralsei´s legs still felt a bit shaky, but he felt better now; the pain inside of him had been reduced to a slight, almost unnoticeable sting. “Yes, I´m feeling a lot better…that potion is a potent painkiller, without any side-effects. It lasts for roughly one day, and I still have one left in the bag,” he replied while looking into the bag he carried at his side. Two flasks with a blue potion for him, two potions with yellow liquids for his friends, and one with a green liquid, which was the painkiller.

“Alright, then let´s hope that we can get this story over with within two days…we don´t have that much more time than that anyways,” Kris said with a firm nod, and took his position at the front of the group again. He looked back again at Ralsei with a questioning look, as if he wanted to know whether the dark prince really was okay or not. Ralsei smiled at him to assure him that that was the case, and Kris smiled back at him with a sincere warm look on his face…one that made Ralsei blush, just as always. With a grin, the human turned around and began walking again, prompting the others to follow him.

It didn´t take long for them to reach the mysterious door close to Seam´s shop; Kris opened it and stepped through, with Susie following him. Ralsei took another deep breath before stepping through, directing his thoughts to Card Castle. As he stepped out of the door again, he found himself in the familiar area in front of it, with his friends waiting for him. Once Kris had seen that he was with them, he continued walking towards the castle, entering it in hopes of finding out where Jevil possibly was at the moment.

A beam of light appeared in front of them, letting the duke of puzzles descend in front of him. “Lightners, thou are back in our castleth, welcometh. The king hast already been worried where thee were at the day of yesterdayeth,” Rouxls Kaard greeted them. The last time Ralsei had talked to him was right after the fateful event that had started this whole mess…

“Greetings, Mr. Kaard. Sadly, the events two days ago have caused more trouble than we had at first thought. We would like to speak with Lancer, it is quite urgent and of a most serious matter,” Ralsei explained to him, leaving a worried face on the tall blue monster. “If that ists true, I shall inform the king of thine requesteth,” Rouxls answered after a few seconds, and disappeared in a beam of light.

“Was it wrong to worry them like that?” Ralsei asked as they walked towards the elevator that would take them to the top floor. Kris shook his head at his question. “No, it´s better if we come straight to the point here. This isn´t the time for playing it down, because we don´t have much time at all,” the human answered, and Ralsei had to admit that it probably was for the better this way, even though he didn´t want to worry Lancer or anyone else. They entered the elevator and rode it to the top floor, after which they quickly made their way past the shop of Rouxls Kaard and Lancer´s room.

“Hello, clowns! Lesser dad told me that you wanted to speak with me about something important and serious…” Lancer greeted them as they entered the throne room, sitting on the throne with Rouxls Kaard standing next to him. The young spade at least tried to keep his cheery attitude up, but Ralsei could see that he looked worried as well.

“Hey Lancer, we need to ask you a favour…we´re looking for someone in this world, and were hoping that your troops could have spotted traces of him,” Kris replied, and the expression of curiosity was added to their worried faces. “Who couldst thou be seeking that it ists of such importance?” the duke asked the group, and Ralsei stepped forward, ready to explain the whole situation. “We are looking for Jevil, we need to find him as soon as it is possible. We really hope that your troops have seen traces of his chaos anywhere,” the dark prince answered.

“The wild card is who thou seeketh? He ists a most dangerous being, he was lockedeth away for a reason,” Rouxls said, now clearly confused. Ralsei knew that he wouldn´t get around explaining the whole story. “We know it, but he could be the only person who can save me. I´m sure that you remember the incident with the old king, Mr. Kaard. It seems that he had attacked and struck me with a curse that is now threatening to slowly consume me…and if we don´t cure it, I won´t live to see another day soon. Jevil is the only one who is strong enough to cure me from it, as he can overpower the old Spade King. We are trying to find him and bring him back to Seam, so that he can possibly fix his mind again. We need to accomplish this as soon as possible…” the dark prince explained, sending looks of shock to the faces of Lancer and Rouxls Kaard.

“Whoa, are you serious? You´re not trying to pull a prank on us?” Lancer asked, as if he was hoping that what he had told wasn´t the truth. Ralsei reluctantly put his hand onto his chest and released his soul, which clearly showed the progress of the curse. Rouxls´ expression darkened, while Lancer simply gasped in shock at the sight. “I hath heard of such things before, but I didn´t knoweth that they were true…and if what thou said ists true, young one, then the old court mage and jester mighteth be thine only hopeths…” the duke of puzzles said with a slow nod.

“Lesser dad, go and ask everyone if they have seen any traces of Jevil. We need to help the clown, I don´t want to see him die…” Lancer told him with a clearly saddened and worried expression. Rouxls Kaard took a bow before taking a step away from the throne. “Thine command shallst be executed immediately,” he responded as he warped out of the room in a beam of light. Lancer jumped off his throne and walked over to Ralsei, inspecting the soul of the dark prince closer once he stood in front of it. “That looks…not good, to say the least…how are you feeling?” he asked the fluffy prince.

“I would like to say that I´m fine…but I fear that I´m not. It is really painful, but I thankfully have potions that serve as painkillers; but there also are these violent outbursts that I could have at certain points…I had almost suffered from another one after you left, Kris…I just barely managed to suppress it, it was really frightening,” he explained his condition, shivering at the thought of the things that had taken over his mind.

“I really hope that you won´t have another one, Ralsei…I don´t even know if we are able to do something about it if it came that far. And I don´t know what could happen if you had another one of those outbursts…” Kris said with both a worried expression and voice, putting a hand onto the shoulder of the fluffy prince. Ralsei blushed at the touch of his friend, but didn´t object…why would he, anyways? “I really don´t know, but I fear that I could turn against you in these moments, as I develop violent tendencies in a phase like that…” Ralsei said in fear, picturing out that he could fight his friends when he lost control of his friends…

“No offense, but from what I have seen so far, you shouldn´t be too much to handle with your spells and how you´d whack someone with your scarf,” Susie commented, causing Ralsei to let out a sigh. He knew that she was right with that, but he was capable of so much more, all because he had been eager to learn different spells when he had been alone. “If only you knew what other spells I can cast, Susie. Those spells that I used are the ones to peacefully resolve a fight, but I can turn the tides with violent magic as well…I just chose not to do so. I fear that I won´t have a choice once the hatred inside of me takes over…”

“Well great, so that makes it worse. What are we going to do if you have an outburst anyways?” Susie asked in annoyance. Ralsei hadn´t thought about that yet, but he knew that those outbursts didn´t last for very long…though it could very well be that as the curse progressed, they were going to last longer as well. “I think you could just try to wait it out, I usually regain control after some time…until then, however, you should be prepared to fight me…” the dark prince suggested, and he was suddenly spun around and taken into a tight hug.

“Don´t worry, we won´t get hurt and we will do our best not to hurt you. Right, Susie?” Kris said next to his ear as he kept hugging him, causing Ralsei to blush again. “Well, guess I´ll only hit you with the handle of my axe, then. Should do less damage if we can´t outlast you and still knock you down,” the purple monster replied with a shrug. Kris opened his mouth, seemingly wanting to protest, but Ralsei spoke up before him.

“If you really can´t outlast my outbursts and are in danger because of me, then do what you must to stop me. I don´t want you to get seriously hurt because of me, so it would be best if you stopped me one way or another,” he agreed to Susie´s solution. If this was the only way to stop him from hurting his friends, then that was how it would be.

A beam of light interrupted everyone as Rouxls Kaard appeared next to the group again, with both an excited and a worried expression on his face. “Lesser dad, have you found anything?” Lancer asked in anticipation as he jumped up and down. “I am glad that thou asked, for I bring news. We hath lost a few of our troops in the foresteth over the last feweth days, and now one of our Ruddin Rangers hast reportedeth strange occurrences far from the normal pathways. This must be where thine target ists,” the duke told everyone.

“You mean you lost people in Scarlet Forest? Why didn´t we know about this?” Kris demanded to know, but Lancer stepped up and looked at the group. “We didn´t want to worry the rest of the population, and hoped that they were just lost. But maybe Jevil has something to do with it. Let us go, clowns! We´ll find Jevil,” the young spade explained, and then shot his fist in the air.

“Sorry Lancer, but we can´t take you with us. Jevil is too dangerous, we don´t want you to get hurt,” Susie said, and the tone in her voice left no room for objections. “She is right, young one. The wild card ists a formidable opponent, he was lockedeth away only with greatest force,” Rouxls explained to him, and Lancer sat down on his throne again, though with a sad expression. “Alright, if you say so…but please be careful, guys. And bring back our troops while you´re at it,” he told them.

“Don´t worry, we´ll get everything in order again. We wouldn´t be the three heroes if we couldn´t,” Kris assured him and let go of Ralsei again. The dark prince again blushed as he realized that he had been hugging Kris the entire time. “Y-yeah, we´ll find Jevil and get your troops back, don´t worry,” Ralsei added with a smile.

“We wisheth thee luck with thine quest, and hopeth that thou mayst return with good news,” Rouxls said as he took a bow, and they said their farewells to everyone before leaving the throne room. Ralsei and his friends walked toward the elevator and entered it, riding it down to the ground floor. “And so our journey truly begins,” the dark prince said as they left the elevator and walked out of the castle.


	5. A Forest of Chaos

Only a few weeks ago, nobody would have shed a tear if these circumstances had occurred back then instead of today. Nobody would have even noticed; the gate leading to the Fields of Hopes and Dreams had been closed off after all. And then the prophecy wouldn´t have come to be, because Ralsei wouldn´t have been around, meaning that the Lightners would have found a truly empty town, the last inhabitant turned to dust not too long ago.

Ralsei knew that he was blessed to have these friends, people who actually cared for him. Susie wouldn´t admit it, he knew, but Ralsei assumed that she liked him more than she would ever let on…even if they had a bit of a difficult start. Lancer was still young and a child at heart, but he cared for the dark prince, even when they had been enemies back when the Lightners fell down.

Nothing however came even remotely close to the levels of kindness and compassion that Kris showed him every day, almost every single moment. He had been kind to the fluffy prince from the very start, showed him acts of generosity and went out of his way to make him happier. To Ralsei, he was a true hero…no, not just a hero; Kris was just perfect to him. Now that he thought about his first adventure, he suspected that he had fallen in love with him back then already, though he never realised it…until the last night, where that terrible nightmare had shown him the beautiful truth.

"If we want to find Jevil, we have to explore the forest beyond the normal pathways. I certainly hope that we can find either him or at least traces today, because I want to have this dealt with before tomorrow ends. Are you two ready?" Kris´ voice ripped him out of his thoughts, and he managed to come to a halt before bumping into Susie. He knew that he couldn´t allow himself to get carried away anymore, not if they were in danger of facing combat at any given moment.

"This forest is way too big…how are we supposed to find that guy?" Susie complained in front of him, impatiently taking her axe from one hand into the other over and over again. Ralsei hated to admit that she had a point, thinking about what traces of chaos could actually look like. The sound of a rustling bush let his ears twitch as he turned his head into the direction of the source of the sound. "Did you hear that, guys?" the dark prince asked his friends, to which Kris drew his sword and slowly approached the bush.

A Ruddin Ranger jumped out of the bush without warning, but before anyone was able to speak a word, it drew its weapon and attacked the group, summoning diamonds around itself. Everyone expected it to hurl them at the group in an order like they were used to, and were therefor caught off guard by them being thrown at them at seemingly random intervals and patterns.

Kris swiftly dodged the projectiles and blocked a few with his shield, but Susie wasn´t as lucky. She got hit by three diamonds, letting her growl in both anger and pain. Ralsei was able to evade the projectiles because he was the furthest away from the Ruddin, but quickly looked at Susie afterwards. "Are you okay, Susie? Should I heal you?" he asked in worry, shaken by how quickly things had gotten out of hand.

"Save you energy for a Pacify spell, Ralsei. I want to end this fight before it gets worse," Kris commanded him, and Ralsei knew that it was better to finish the fight before treating any wounds, unless it was absolutely necessary. Turning around to the Ruddin Ranger, Kris tried to charm it like they were used to. "Your eyes shine brighter than any diamond in the entire world," he told it in a soothing voice, and Ralsei readied himself to cast a spell to put it to sleep.

Only that the Ruddin Ranger summoned more diamonds and threw them at them, only targeting Kris and Ralsei this time. Kris was as nimble as always, jumping out of the way of the projectiles just before he would have been hit. The prince of darkness was almost as lucky, though he got scraped by a single diamond. He did feel it cut him, but he didn´t notice any strong pain thanks to the potion he had taken earlier this day. What he did feel however was a bit of anger rising up inside of him; he focused to suppress it as good as he was able to.

"Grr…you are one of the most ungrateful pieces of garbage that I have ever seen, right after the King," Susie growled at the Ruddin Ranger as she witnessed what had happened, but everyone was left startled when it seemed to be flattered by her insult and lowered its weapon. "Ralsei, Pacify!" he was able to hear Kris shout at him, and quickly focused his energy into a spell, sending it flying in the form of a blue sphere to the Ruddin Ranger once he was ready. Their foe quickly fell asleep as the spell worked, finally ending the surprising battle. "Phew, that was unexpected in a lot of regards," Kris said as he faced the group after taking a long breath. "Are you guys alright?"

"Could be worse," Ralsei replied truthfully, knowing that a bit of a scratch wasn´t going to do much to him. He was more concerned about Susie´s wellbeing, as she had taken more hits than he did. "That guy got me damn well, but why didn´t your compliment work?" Susie said through clenched teeth, pulling out the three Diamonds that were still stuck in her left arm, causing her to growl again in pain.

"Here, this should help," Ralsei mumbled while channelling his energy, forming a green sphere in his hands afterwards. He held it above the purple monster´s arm and then slowly pressed it onto it, healing the wounds that she had to endure. Ralsei felt himself getting worn out already; he estimated that two to three more spells were the most that he was able to use before his energy was depleted. "Ugh, thanks. So why didn´t our strategy work?" she commented once she seemed to feel better. Ralsei had an idea on what it was, and he didn´t like it one bit.

"I…I fear that Jevil has done something to them…and now they´re twisted versions of what they have been. Maybe he has spread his chaos, which means that we have to do the opposite of what we´d normally do to resolve the fight peacefully," he presented his theory, and knew that they had one more reason to find Jevil: he was causing chaos to the entire population by transforming them into chaotic beings.

"Well, seems like your bad attitudes come in handy here, Susie," Kris replied with a slight chuckle, but she just shrugged at it. Whatever the solution was, Ralsei knew that they were going to have to find Jevil as quickly as possible. "Whatever it is, this makes things more complicated than they have already been. If Jevil really brainwashed these troops, then we´ll have to rescue them before we go for him. We can´t just let these…Chaos Troops run around," he firmly said to the others.

"You´re right, Ralsei. We need to take care of this problem before we deal with Jevil, so let´s search for Lancer´s troops. Maybe the Ruddin Ranger here can tell us a bit more, if it wakes up soon enough," Kris agreed, and then looked at the Ruddin that had been pacified a few minutes ago. Susie stepped forward and knelt down next to the sleeping trooper. "Allow me," she said to them, and then picked up and shook the soldier with all of her might. "Wake up!" she shouted at it in addition, startling the Ruddin as it quickly woke up.

"Wh-wha-?" it asked in confusion, before Susie let go of the Ruddin once she saw that it was awake, letting it fall back on the ground. "There, now you can question that guy," she flatly said to Kris as she stepped back and leaned against a tree. Ralsei was shook at her blunt and straightforward approach, but he had to admit that it saved them time, even though he was not a fan of how she treated the Ruddin.

"Trooper, are you alright?" Kris asked as he knelt down next to the Ruddin, and its eyes widened as it saw who was surrounding it. "T-The three heroes? Oh, I am honoured to meet you," the Ruddin Ranger said in excitement as it stood up, to which Kris did the same. "We are glad that we could help you, it appears that you were lost in more than one way…what is the last thing that you can remember?" Ralsei asked the Ruddin, hoping to get any useful information out of it. A confused look appeared on the face of the Ranger.

"Uhm, well…I can´t remember much, only that we were patrolling in this part of the forest. I think the last thing I remember is hearing someone above us say something along the lines of 'freeing us from our prison'," it told them, causing Ralsei´s ears to twitch again as he took the information in. He was now certain that Jevil had been behind this mess. "So I assume that this confirms my theory…where have you been exactly? We are really close to Card Castle now, were you deeper inside the forest or closer to the pathways?" he asked the soldier, who tilted its head a bit as it seemed to think about the events.

"If I can recall correctly, we have left the pathway to the right if you follow it for about one hundred steps from the entrance to the forest if you come from Card Castle. We made sure to mark the trees with diamonds every so often so that we could find the way back," the Ruddin Ranger shared its knowledge, and Kris nodded at the answer. He looked back towards the entrance and tilted his head a bit, seemingly thinking about something.

"Alright, so it isn´t far from here, maybe forty more steps. Thank you, trooper, and now please return to the castle and rest there. We will make sure to rescue your fellow comrades as well," Kris said as he faced the Ruddin again, who nodded and began to slither away. "Thank you, heroes. And good luck on your quest!" it shouted at them before picking up its pace, leaving the Fun Gang alone again.

"Is Jevil trying to liberate this world…doing it his way? If so, then he could possibly convert the entire Dark World…we have to stop him at all costs, and then get him to cure Ralsei. If we have to, we´ll bring him to Seam before that," Kris said with resolution, seemingly preparing to get going again. Susie slowly walked towards them again as it seemed to be time to venture deeper into the forest. "By the way, Ralsei, how are you doing? You have used two spells right there, and I don´t think that you´ve fully recovered from making your potions…" Kris asked as he turned around and looked at Ralsei with a concerned look, worry shining within the red jewels that Ralsei loved to see…

"I…I have to admit that it was tiresome to cast my spells, and I think that I can only cast two or three more before I´m at my limit. I´ll make sure to drink one of the potions at the start of our next battle," he replied, as he didn´t want to lie to Kris. The human kept looking at him, still with a deeply concerned expression. "I have asked my mom a bit about magic potions…she mentioned that there could be side effects if you drank more than one potion within a certain amount of time…what could the side effects be, Ralsei?"

The dark prince quickly went through his memory, remembering what he had read about the various potions that he had consumed over the past few days. One effect came to his mind, and he realised that it wasn´t going to help him at all. "W-well…if I drank that potion, there is a chance that I could become more sensitive to stress and…I could be irritated and aggravated more easily…" Ralsei quietly said after he gulped at the realisation.

"Let me get this right, Ralsei. If you drank that potion that will make you capable of using more magic, you could also be more likely to have an outburst and fight us?" Kris asked, and he could have sworn that the right hand of the Lightner trembled just a tiny bit at these words. "I…I fear that this is the case. If you think that it isn´t worth the risk, then I will hold back and only use my magic in emergencies, so that I wouldn´t hurt you…" Ralsei replied, a tear forming in his left eye as he thought about how he could attack his friends…attack Kris…

A stronger sting in his heart stopped his thoughts as he flinched just a bit at it, though Kris clearly noticed it. "Ralsei, are you alright?" he asked with even more worry than before, but he barely heard his friend because of the darkness inside of him…that he could kill everyone just as well, making their jobs way easier, maybe even force Jevil to cure him with damaging spells that he knew enough of…

A sudden touch to his shoulder made him snap out of his thoughts, and as he looked up again, he saw two red shining gems looking at him with great concern and compassion, completely dissolving his dark thoughts and bringing him back to his senses while also letting the pain subside. "K-Kris…" Ralsei managed to bring out as his face felt hotter all of a sudden.

Kris simply took him into his arms without saying a word, a hug filled with more warmth and sincerity than Ralsei thought he was able to handle. "Are you better again? You looked so…different…" the human whispered next to his ear, his voice shaky and filled with worry, bringing out another tear from Ralsei´s eye. Had he really been able to see what was going on inside of him? "Kris…these thoughts I just had…they scare me, it is something I never thought anyone could even consider…"

"Shh…it´s alright, this isn´t you, remember that," Kris whispered and held him a bit tighter, and Ralsei just closed his eyes and appreciated the gestures of his friend. They stood there motionless for what seemed like an eternity to the dark prince, but he was quickly made aware that they were not alone because Susie cleared her throat loud enough for the two of them to hear it.

"Look, you two can go and get a room later, I just want this whole thing to be over in time," she remarked as she kept looking at them, which Ralsei noticed as he opened his eyes again. "O-oh, sorry…we´ll be on our way, let us save Lancer´s troops!" the fluffy boy quickly said with all the enthusiasm he was able to muster, which was a lot more than before, now that Kris was hugging him.

"Ralsei…if we want to make this work, we will need your magic abilities as much as we need the strengths of everyone here. You should drink the potion, and if it came as far, Susie and I would get over your potential outbursts and walk down this road together with you. It is frightening, I know…but together, we will be able to get through this," the human said with a voice filled with determination and…what was that other distinct tone? Ralsei wasn´t sure, but he thought that he had heard it earlier in Kris´ voice before. He cleared his mind of it, and refocused on the tasks they had to do.

"You´re right. We need to get this done as soon as we can, and that means that I´ll help you to the best of my abilities," the dark prince replied with determination, knowing that their goal was to cure him so that he wouldn´t ever have these thoughts again. Kris let go of him and flashed him a warm smile before returning to his position in the group. "That´s what I wanted to hear, Ralsei. Alright guys, let´s go," the leader of the Fun Gang commanded and started walking deeper into the forest, followed by Susie and Ralsei.

Kris left the normal pathways after a distance that fit the Ruddin Ranger´s description, entering unknown territory and seemingly getting a bit nervous. Ralsei could see that he kept looking around as if he expected to be attacked at any given moment, but he settled on the thought that it was probably for the better, seeing as how the fight earlier had come without warning. But everything remained quiet, maybe even a bit too quiet for Ralsei´s liking. Not even birds were singing in the forest, and since there was no wind, the only sound that was actually audible were those of the group´s footsteps.

Trying to lighten his own mood, he began to hum only so that he was able to hear it, slightly bringing down the tension for him in this moment. He too kept looking around for any signs of more of Lancer´s troops, and suddenly spotted something that made his heart stop for a moment. A projectile in form of a heart flew at Kris from his left, but the human didn´t see it coming. Thinking quickly, Ralsei channelled his energy and commanded a strong blast of air to erupt from his position, knocking both Kris and Susie to the ground just before the threat was able to hit Kris.

"Ralsei! What the hell was that for?" Susie angrily snarled at him as she got off the ground again, but the dark prince pointed into the direction the Heart had come from while panting heavily, where two Head Hathys made their way out of a bush. "T-they had almost hit you with an attack, Kris. It was the only thing I knew to do," he quickly explained while Kris got up as well, looking at the Head Hathys.

"Thanks, I owe you one. Now let us get these guys back to their senses," Kris said as he equipped his shield, with Susie getting ready as well. Ralsei knew that he wasn´t going to be able to do much more in his current state, so he took one of the blue potions out of his bag and opened the flask, drinking its content afterwards. He tasted a slightly sweet flavour before feeling a lot of energy inside of him, and he was quite surprised at how strong the potion was.

The two Head Hathys started the battle by creating a ring of hearts around the group, though instead of the ring becoming smaller, the hearts moved in like Jevil´s ring-around attack from two opposing sides. Kris dodged the attack with the same strategy as he did against Jevil, and so did Susie. Ralsei on the other hand was caught off guard and got hit by a heart that hit his back. He again felt almost no pain, but he was feeling the anger inside of him rise again, stronger this time.

"Focus, Ralsei. Everything is alright, this isn´t the fault of anyone here," he heard Kris´ soothing voice, and the anger inside of him grew weaker again. Had it really been that obvious? "Th-thank you, Kris. I don´t know what I´d do without you…" Ralsei replied, feeling way better thanks to his friend, but Susie cut them off quickly. "Whatever, you´d better cover your ears, Ralsei. If flirting is what they originally liked, then the opposite would be a few rough words, and trust me when I say that I know enough of those," Susie said with a grin, and the dark prince knew better than to object.

As Ralsei covered his ears, he was able to see Susie speak to one of the Head Hathys. Looking further, he was able to see Kris´ face becoming paler as she kept talking while the Head Hathy started to blush and lower its weapon. Kris eventually gestured her to stop, after which Ralsei uncovered his ears and looked at them with a questioning look. "What did you say? It seems to have worked at least…" the dark prince asked, but Kris shook his head.

"You´d have nightmares for the rest of your life if I told you. I didn´t even know that those words existed, Susie," Kris replied, causing Susie to shrug. "Well, the more you know. Pacify that guy, Ralsei, then we can take care of the other. I already know a few nice things to say," the purple monster replied, and Ralsei quickly channelled his spell and pacified the first Head Hathy, putting it to sleep. He still felt that it was tiring to cast the spell, but not nearly as much as it had been before he drank the potion. With this amount of magic, he was going to be able to cast his spells way more freely, just like he did on his first adventure.

The second Head Hathy attacked and summoned a giant heart, letting it spin around between itself and the Fun Gang. The heart eventually pointed at Kris, who quickly managed to roll under it as it flew into his direction. The attack wasn´t over, of course, because the heart exploded into several smaller ones, flying towards every group member just like Jevil´s heart-Bombs caused them to. Kris blocked a few with his shield and dodged the other ones, while Susie cleaved through the hearts with her axe. Ralsei carefully evaded the projectiles with swift steps, and then prepared himself to pacify the second Head Hathy.

He covered his ears again as Susie began to speak, making the Head Hathy blush, while Kris seemed even more shocked at her words than before. Susie eventually stopped talking, allowing Ralsei to finally uncover his ears and cast another pacify spell, effectively putting the Head Hathy to sleep and ending the battle. "Man, feels good to be able to say all that without getting punished," Susie said with a grin, while Kris just nodded with a blank expression. He looked like he wished that he had covered his ears as well, but he was definitely going to get over it better than Ralsei would have.

"Is everyone fine?" Kris asked as he looked at the group. Susie hadn´t been hit during the battle, but Ralsei remembered the Heart stuck in his back all too well. "Almost…could you help me out, Kris?" the dark prince asked has he turned his back towards him. He heard Kris step closer, and then felt the heart being pulled out of his back, though the pain stung even through his potion that numbed the pain a great deal. "Argh…thank you…I´ll patch myself up, don´t worry about me…" Ralsei said between pants and clenched teeth, casting a healing spell onto his body to cure his wound.

"Are you really okay?" he suddenly heard in front of him, and saw Kris standing only a few inches away from him. "O-oh, yeah…I´m fine, don´t worry. Let´s send those two back to Card Castle, and then continue deeper into the forest. There shouldn´t be many troops left to save," Ralsei replied while blushing, hoping that they were going to save the remaining soldiers before long. "I´ll take your word for it, but if anything is wrong, please tell me. Now, let us wake the Head Hathys up and send them on their way, we still have work to do," Kris nodded as he answered, turning over to the sleeping soldiers and walking up to them.

Kris knelt down next to them and shook them in hopes of waking them up, and he was successful after a minute or two had passed. The two soldiers slowly stood up again, looking quite confused at the whole situation. "Ahem, greetings. We have managed to rescue you, you seemed to be lost in the forest here. Card Castle is that way, a Ruddin Ranger is already on its way there. We will go and look for your other comrades as well, don´t worry about them," Kris calmly explained to the two of them, and after a few seconds, they nodded and walked towards Card Castle, quiet as always.

"Good job, everyone. I wonder how many soldiers we have yet to save," Kris said to Susie and Ralsei, and the dark prince thought about it. He remembered something Lancer had once said about the way his patrols were structured. "I think we have one more Ruddin Ranger and one more Head Hathy to save. Lancer always sends them out as a group of five, with two Rangers and three Head Hathys," he replied, after which he heard what seemed to be a sigh of relief from Susie.

"Great, so that means that we can go and thrash Jevil all the sooner. What are we waiting for?" she impatiently asked, and gestured Kris to lead them deeper into the forest. The human took his position in front of his friends, and walked into the direction opposite to the pathway after checking on Ralsei one more time. For the longest time, nothing happened…and this only made Ralsei more anxious than he already was. He feared to be attacked at any given moment, he feared that he could turn against his friends at any moment, and he feared that Jevil was going to prove to be too much to handle.

He thought back on what caused his anger to rise every time. There were those times where he had been hit by enemy attacks, obviously, but he also saw a connection to Kris in that regard. Whenever Kris was taken away from him or he imagined that something bad was to happen to Kris, he would have a sudden burst of anger…was this perhaps his love for the human mixed with the hate that had been planted into his heart? But once he got angry enough, he wouldn´t be able to differentiate between allies and enemies, but rather attack everyone in sight.

Ralsei shuddered at the thought of what could happen if he actually witnessed Kris getting hurt by an enemy…was he going to lose control over himself and call upon more destructive magic in his arsenal, perhaps even to fight his friends? He didn´t know and wasn´t looking forward to finding it out either. They were going to be able to handle another Ruddin Ranger and Head Hathy, but Jevil was way more dangerous than any other foe. They were not going to avoid being hit by the jester, that he was quite sure of.

The minutes they walked through the forest at first seemed like hours before turning into literal ones, all without seeing Jevil or the last two soldiers of Lancer. They were still on the right track, however, because at times there were things that obviously had been transformed by Jevil, like a tree with a knot in its trunk that was shaped like a Spade or a flower that was formed like a Heart. Ralsei started to get exhausted, not from using his magic energy but because of how long they had been walking for now. Susie seemed to be fine, she was a tougher person than either of the two boys after all; but Kris seemed to be fighting an urge to stop and set up camp as well.

"Kris…you look tired, I think we should call it a day and get the rest done tomorrow," Ralsei spoke up after a while, causing everyone to stop. The human looked at him with a determined look, but the dark prince could clearly see how tired his friend was because of how much he had been walking and fighting today. "We need to find Jevil and the other two troops, so that we can cure you. We would be wasting time if we rested now…" Kris replied, and he seemingly tried to sound both alright and determined, but Ralsei didn´t buy it for a second. They both were exhausted, and needed some well-deserved rest.

"What will we do against Jevil when we´re all tired out, Kris? He would sweep us away with ease; we need to be at the best of our abilities when facing him. So let us spend the rest of the night here, okay?" Ralsei answered, hoping to persuade his friend into seeing that they had no chance against the jester in their current state. Kris looked him into the eyes for a long time before sighing and nodding with a dark expression.

"You´re right, Ralsei, we need all of our energy for Jevil. Let us spend the night here, with one person keeping watch for a few hours before another one takes over. I´ll be the first on guard, if that´s okay with you," he offered and sat down onto the ground, seemingly relieved to get some rest. "I can set up a campfire here so that we won´t be cold over the night, we just need a few stones so that it will be contained and doesn´t set the whole forest on fire. Susie, do you want to be on guard after Kris or should I do that?" Ralsei said and then looked at the purple monster.

"You take watch after him, I won´t be able to sleep again once I´ve been awake for some time. Let´s make a fire and then go and sleep; I´m actually quite tired because someone had the nerve to wake me way ahead of my normal time," she replied and looked at Kris, who just shrugged with an innocent smile. Kris got up again and started collecting rocks, putting them onto the ground in a circle so that Ralsei was able to make a fire inside of it.

The dark prince channelled his energy and soon felt the warmth he was familiar with flow from his heart to his hands, where it left them in form of a rainbow-coloured stream of fire which formed a magical fire on the ground inside of the rocks. "Ah, this should keep us warm during the night," he happily commented as he sat down close to the fire, enjoying the source of heat in front of him.

"Thank you, Ralsei. Now, you guys should get some sleep, I´ll wake you after some time to take over my task of guarding us," Kris said with a smile as he sat down as well. Ralsei nodded and took off his hat, putting it onto the ground next to him, before resting his body on the ground next to the campfire, curling up into a small ball of fur afterwards. A bit of shuffling on the other side of the fire led him to the assumption that Susie had lied down on the ground as well.

"Sleep well, everyone," he was able to hear Kris say, before drifting away into the depths of sleep. Once he opened his eyes again, he found himself inside the garden of his castle in front of the fountain. He stood up in confusion and looked around, just to hear a voice behind him. "So you finally woke up, sleepy-head," Kris said with a chuckle, prompting him to turn around and look into the direction the voice had come from.

There his friend stood, a warm and caring smile going hand in hand with lovingly caring warmth radiating from the two red jewels that were his eyes. "K-Kris? Did you watch me the entire time? You could have woken me up, that wouldn´t have been a problem," Ralsei said as he began to blush. He didn´t know what it was, but something about Kris seemed different than the other times they had been alone…

"You looked so cute while sleeping, I couldn´t bring myself to do it. Plus, you´re even cuter with that blush on your face," his friend replied with an even bigger smile, causing Ralsei to blush even more. Kris walked closer to him, stopping only a few inches away from the dark prince. "Is…everything alright, Kris? You behave differently…" Ralsei asked, unsure what this whole situation meant.

"Everything is more than alright, my dear prince. Your presence alone makes everything alright," Kris said with a voice that threatened to melt Ralsei…he was able to hear something in his voice that he had heard before, but only from Kris. His friend stepped a bit closer and put his right hand around Ralsei´s head, slowly going through the fur on the back of it with his hand.

"Kris…" the fluffy prince managed to reply, his face feeling so hot as if he had to put it into the water in the fountain. "I´m so glad that we were able to cure you, I wouldn´t have been able to bear that loss. The only thing I want is to be with you, forever…" the human said, and Ralsei could clearly hear the affection in his voice. Were his hopes really fulfilled; did Kris really love him like he loved the Lightner?

"Kris…I…I love you," Ralsei finally mustered up his courage, and said what he had been feeling for so long. Kris´ smile only grew warmer, and he took Ralsei into the most sincere and loving hug that he had ever given the fluffy prince. "I knew it all along, Ralsei…and I love you, too…" Kris replied, nuzzling his head against the one of Ralsei, who happily rested his head against the one of his friend and took him into his arms as well.

"Ralsei," he was able to hear him say, but it sounded distant. He looked around in confusion, and noticed that everything around him was fading to darkness. "Ralsei," he again heard, and he was suddenly shaken a bit. He closed his eyes, and as he opened them, he found himself next to the campfire again, with Kris kneeling next to him. "Hm?" the dark prince mumbled in confusion and tiredness.

"Ah, you´re finally awake. I´m sorry that I woke you up; you seemed to have a pleasant dream…" Kris whispered next to him, and Ralsei yawned before slowly sitting up and stretching himself. "Oh, no worries…while it was a nice dream, you deserve some rest, too," Ralsei replied with a tired smile directed at his friend as he remembered that he was now supposed to be on the lookout for a few hours.

"Then I´m glad," Kris said while yawning, and sat down on the left of Ralsei, resting his head on the fluffy prince´s shoulder, causing him to blush like crazy again. "Uhm…are you okay, Kris?" he asked in confusion. Kris turned his head a bit to be able to look into Ralsei´s eyes, and the dark prince could see a warm and gentle light mixed into the tiredness inside of them.

"Oh, sorry…you´re just so soft and comfortable, and I thought that I could rest my head on your shoulder for a bit…do you mind?" Kris answered, so Ralsei decided that he was going to take that opportunity. "No, I don´t mind at all. Rest your head for as long as you want to…" Ralsei said to his friend, who in return turned his head again to rest more comfortably. "Thank you…" Kris tiredly said, and it didn´t take long before his breathing took a slow and steady rhythm, indicating that he had fallen asleep.

Ralsei waited some time before he carefully rested his head onto Kris´, keeping his ears open to hear any possible threat coming closer to them. The night remained silent, however, and Ralsei took the time he had to reflect upon everything that had happened so far. The day with the Fun Gang, where the King had later dealt the destructive blow against him The day afterwards, where he and Kris had found out the truth about his condition…and then the time he spent with Kris in his castle, the best time he had ever had in his entire life.

Kris had been so much kinder than the previous times, always there to help him get something done and always telling him those sweet words. He was constantly going out of his way to help his friend, and that for Ralsei was one of his greatest qualities. He thought about it…was it possible that Kris was so much nicer to him because he himself shared what Ralsei felt for him, just that it was what the Lightner felt for him? He held onto that hope, because by now Kris hadn´t actually ever talked about things that went into that direction…except for that one conversation they had in the kitchen, maybe.

He was still going to have time to find out after their adventure, stopping Jevil and curing his curse were more important at the moment. Under normal circumstances, Ralsei would have felt uncomfortable spending the night outside of the safety of his castle, especially when there were three people roaming around that could attack them at any time. With Kris being so close to him, however, he found himself at ease with the situation, letting the time pass more quickly as well as he enjoyed every moment of Kris sleeping on his shoulder like this.

With the time sort of kept track of in his head, he eventually knew that he was going to have to wake up Susie, preferably without disturbing Kris´ slumber. He tried his best and moved his left hand behind Kris´ back, while also carefully holding his head with his right hand. He then slowly lied down to the ground, keeping Kris stable as the human moved with him. Once Ralsei had stretched out on the ground, he slowly and carefully took his hands away from his friend and moved away from him, in hopes of not disturbing his sleep. Ralsei then snuck over to Susie, who was quietly snoring away on the ground on the other side of the fire.

"Susie," he whispered next to her, lightly shaking the monster to get her to wake up. She didn´t react at first, not to his surprise, so he kept trying to wake her up. Thanks to his persistent efforts, he eventually got a reaction from her, and once he saw that she seemed to be on the verge of waking up, he shook her a bit stronger, though he wasn´t a fan of ripping others out of their sleep like this. Her eyes slowly opened, and once they faced him, he gave a small smile. "Hey Susie, you´re up for keeping guard," he whispered, causing her to groan in annoyance, thankfully without waking Kris up.

"Ugh…fine," she tiredly complained, but sat up nonetheless. She grabbed her axe and stood up, walking around the nearby area to look for potential enemies. Ralsei on the other hand felt that he needed some more sleep, and walked back to Kris, who was still sleeping next to the campfire. The dark prince carefully lied down next to the human again, and quickly felt how he was falling asleep. He unintentionally put his arm around Kris, but once he noticed he decided that he didn´t care, as that was what he wanted, and he was able to make it look like it had happened while he was sleeping. Bringing his head close to the one of Kris, he closed his eyes and drifted away into sleeping again, a smile on his face.


	6. Let The Games Begin!

Ralsei slowly woke up, feeling even more comfortable than before going to sleep. Slowly coming to all of his senses, he opened his eyes and saw Kris still sleeping right in front of him, though the human had put an arm around Ralsei over the night. He blushed at the realization and was desperately hoping that Susie hadn´t seen any of that, but deep down he knew that the chances for that were as slim as they could be. He still didn´t want to wake Kris up however, and so he remained almost perfectly still, only his breathing moving his body at a steady pace.

Ralsei thought about the tasks they had to get done. There were still two of Lancer´s troops somewhere out in the forest, chaosified by Jevil. They were going to have to pacify them to revert that effect, but it was a rather easy task compared to the next one: finding Jevil and surviving that encounter. He was a much more powerful opponent than the old Spade King had been, and he was quite likely to play his game with the Fun Gang again. Once they were triumphant over him, they were going to be able to bring him back to Seam so that the old shopkeeper could attempt to fix the jester´s mind.

The penultimate step was to get Jevil to cure Ralsei of the King´s curse, allowing him to look into the far future again. This was going to be where the Fun Gang´s adventure would end, but the prince of darkness still had one more thing to do afterwards: to win Kris´ heart and hopefully be happier than ever before, together with the Lightner he valued. It was the goal he wanted to reach, more than anything else…Kris meant everything to him, too perfect was this human for him not to want to spend every single day with him.

He felt movement on his arm and redirected his thoughts back to reality, where he saw Kris move a bit as the human slowly opened his eyes. The red gems quickly locked onto Ralsei, a warm light inside of them being joined by an equally warm smile. "Good morning…" he mumbled before yawning, though he looked down towards where both his and Ralsei´s arm were afterwards. It was the first time he had seen it like that, but the fluffy prince was able to see quite the strong blush on Kris´ face as he seemed to realize what had happened during the night, especially because of Susie being there to potentially mock them for it.

"Oh…sorry about that, Ralsei," Kris said while still blushing, and sat up before rubbing his eyes for a bit. Ralsei didn´t know who of them was blushing more than the other, because he found the blush on Kris´ face extremely cute…combined with the fact that they had been sleeping like that for two consecutive nights now, though Susie had most likely-

"Are you two lovebirds finally awake?" he heard, and the blush on both of their faces intensified within seconds. Ralsei turned his head to see Susie leaning onto her axe with a smirk on her face, and he quickly sat up as well. "S-Susie, how long have you been standing there?" the prince of darkness asked in embarrassment, knowing how that situation had to have looked from someone else´s perspective.

"Since I saw Kris wrapping his arm around you with a smile on his face. I swear that it almost looked like he knew that you were there…so, when are the two of you going to be together, again? Lancer and I are waiting for that since our first adventure, y'know?" she replied with a grin, sending even more heat to Ralsei´s face, and Kris didn´t look any better. "W-what do you mean?" Ralsei wanted to know, unsure about what she meant.

"Come on, don´t play that on me. That the two of you are lovebirds is obvious, it had already been back then, so Lancer and I are waiting for the day you two are finally going to be an official couple," she explained with a grin, and Ralsei knew that she had a point…he had already liked Kris back then, more than just as a friend, though he hadn´t known it at that time. How the human´s feelings for him looked like was still not clear to him, but Susie and Lancer were definitely not going to make the following days any easier.

"Just so that you could poke fun at us even more?" Kris asked her in what seemed to be a very mild anger…more like annoyance if Ralsei had to bet. "Who knows?" Susie asked back, the grin on her face turning into a smile, leaving both Kris and Ralsei without anything to reply as he was unsure what that meant, and it looked like Kris didn´t really know what to make out of her answer either.

"Anyways, I´m tired of waiting, can we go already so that this whole thing is over soon?" she asked the two of them, taking her axe into her hand again before putting it over her shoulder. "Y-yeah, you´re right. We should get going…are you fine with that?" Kris replied before looking at Ralsei, who managed to feel his face getting even hotter at the sight of the two red jewels that he loved to see.

"Uh…sure, let us go and complete our tasks…" the fluffy prince managed to say, almost in trance again as he looked into Kris´ eyes. He managed to look away from them in order to search for his hat, which was on the ground close to him. He quickly stood up and picked it up before putting it onto his head again, shrouding his body in shadows.

"Alright then…two more of Lancer´s troops and Jevil himself, piece of cake," Kris said as he stood up as well and took his position as the leader of the trio again. Susie got in line behind him, Ralsei walking to his spot at the end of the group. With a wave of his hand he extinguished the magical fire that had kept them warm during the night, and all of them stood ready for departure again.

"So, where exactly are we going?" Susie asked the two of them, leaving Ralsei to look around the area. If they wanted to find either Jevil or the two troopers, they were going to need a clue as to where they were going to be able to find them. "I´d say we go in that direction," Kris suggested, the others seeing him point towards a tree that stood on the ground upside-down.

"Things seem to get more chaotic, so it should mean that we´re getting closer to Jevil…" the dark prince assumed, following the other two as they began to walk deeper into the forest. He was anxious because of the possibility of facing Jevil at any moment, and he was able to tell that Kris was tensed up as well, judging by how he looked around frequently, his hand ready to pull up his shield. Susie didn´t show how she felt, but Ralsei assumed that she wasn´t looking forward to fighting Jevil again either.

The fact that everything remained quiet didn´t help with how nervous he was, it just made it even worse. The forest wasn´t small, but it wasn´t that big either, so they had to run into anyone sooner than later, which would induce a fight. There was something else Ralsei felt however, stinging inside of his heart…the effect of the potion he had taken the day before started to wear off, and even though it was still going to last for a bit, he was already feeling the pain stronger than he was comfortable with…what was going to be the full extent of it once the potion´s effect subsided was something he didn´t want to imagine.

Laughter suddenly let Ralsei´s ear twitch, a chuckle he had heard before, causing him to stop in place. The others seemed to have heard it as well, as they stopped and readied their equipment. "That laugh…" Susie said, only for the chuckling to repeat itself. It was as bad as it was in Ralsei´s memory: the laughter of the insane jester that had almost single-handedly taken out the entire team.

"Uee hee hee, visitors, visitors I see! I remember you, you, we have played before; true, true! What fun, what a chaos, a chaos! Lightners, who are trapped inside of the cage…won´t you come and play with me on my stage?" the distant voice of Jevil beckoned, somewhere far ahead of them. The voice, the insanity that laid behind it…it made Ralsei´s fur stand up; he hadn´t been this afraid of something before.

"He sounds like he´s still a good bit away…" Kris mumbled as Jevil´s voice disappeared again, though the feeling of being in danger was still looming above Ralsei, as if they could be attacked at any given moment…he let out a yelp when Susie suddenly whirled around and swung her axe just above his head, though he could hear something hit it as the blade was behind his head. He looked back and saw a Ruddin Ranger and a Head Hathy approaching the group, their weapons drawn.

"I had a feeling that he would play dirty. They almost got you, Ralsei," Susie flatly said as Kris drew his shield and took his position next to Susie. "T-thank you, Susie," the dark prince managed to reply, and he reached for the bag that he had with him. The potion strengthening his pool of magic energy had worn off over the night; he was able to feel how limited he was in terms of using his magic. Just two or three spells were enough to knock him out, as that was when his energy was going to be depleted already.

Ralsei took the remaining blue potion out of his bag and removed the cork from the flask, drinking the sweet potion afterwards. The strength of the magic inside of him suddenly felt different, much stronger than before. The potion was very strong, but he knew that he was going to need every bit of energy to defeat Jevil with his friends. The chaosified troops started to engage them, causing Ralsei to get ready to perform any evasive action needed and cast his spell to pacify their opponents.

A large heart was summoned by the Head Hathy, spinning around between the two opposing sides. At the same time the Ruddin Ranger launched diamonds in random patterns, but Kris blocked them with his shield while Susie hit them away with her axe. Ralsei swiftly jumped out of the way of the diamonds, until the heart stopped and pointed at Kris, who was still busy blocking and dodging the diamonds. It flew towards him, the human seemingly failing to notice it.

"Kris!" Ralsei shouted as he quickly channelled his energy and sent a fireball from the palm of his hand into the heart, knocking the projectile aside as an effect. Kris blinked at the heart next to him on the ground, and then back to Ralsei. "Thanks, I owe you one yet again," Kris said after a sigh of relief, and then looked at Susie. "Alright, go for the Ranger first, its attacks are more dangerous."

Ralsei covered his ears as Susie started talking to the Ruddin, her words flattering the trooper after only a few seconds. The fluffy prince looked over to Kris and saw that he too had covered his ears this time, Susie´s words seemed to be more than he was comfortable with as well. The purple monster stopped insulting the trooper after what seemed like an eternity, the Ruddin Ranger seemingly humbled and shining its eyes at them. Ralsei quickly sent his Pacify spell towards it, letting it descend into the lands of sleep.

The Head Hathy continued the fight by creating a ring of hearts around the group, letting them shoot inwards in a random order. Kris was as swift as always, dodging the bullets with grace, and Ralsei dodged the projectiles as well. Susie however was struck by two hearts in the right side of her body, making her growl in pain and anger. Once the attack was over, she looked at the Head Hathy, and Ralsei could tell from the look in her eyes that she was going to do her best in insulting the trooper.

The prince covered his ears again, a glance to the side showing him that Kris had done the same. Susie started talking, but her words seemed to know no end as Ralsei kept track of the time, counting the seconds…minutes she kept insulting the Head Hathy. Five minutes into talking, Kris finally removed his hands from his ears and gestured her to stop, and with an annoyed glance at him she stopped talking, allowing Ralsei to uncover his ears as well. The soldier was blushing stronger than the fluffy prince had ever done, it must have enjoyed every insult.

"How long would you´ve kept on insulting them?" Kris asked the purple monster, who just shrugged and flatly replied with a "I don´t know, there´s a ton of things I could´ve said.". Ralsei knew that Susie had become a better person, but he had to admit that she had…lower standards for interacting with others than he or Kris did, much to their dismay at times.

"Ugh…Ralsei, put the Head Hathy to sleep. We still need to deal with Jevil," Kris commanded, and the dark prince quickly reacted by channelling his energy into a spell to pacify the remaining soldier. It worked within mere seconds and let the trooper drop to the ground, peacefully resolving the fight like they had always done. "Are you injured badly?" he asked their friend, who pulled the projectiles out of her body.

"Ngh…it hurts, but that´s about it. I can take a lot more than that," she replied with a sense of stubbornness and determination, but Ralsei focused on the energy inside of him again and cast a silent heal prayer onto her, healing the wounds that she had to endure. "I guess that´s good that way, because I doubt that we will get off the hook easily against Jevil…you´ll need all of your strength though," he said to her, causing her to just look aside.

"Eh…thanks," was her reply, just like he was used to, but it didn´t bother him. Susie wouldn´t show how she appreciated gestures like his, but deep down he knew that she did. "Okay, if we´re all set and ready to go, we should wake those troopers up and look for Jevil himself, this whole chaos won´t be dealt with while he is roaming free in his insanity," Kris announced, a decision Ralsei supported. As long as Jevil was running wild, he was able to turn more troops, and they wouldn´t be able to save the prince form his curse.

The human walked over to the sleeping soldiers and shook them until they woke up, seemingly confused. "Hello, are you alright? You seemed to be confused, but we have rescued you. Leave the forest that way and return to Card Castle, your fellow troops are waiting for you," he briefly told them as he pointed into the direction they had come from, gaining a nod from the both of them after they looked at each other in confusion for a few seconds. They picked up their weapons and slowly started their journey home, leaving only the Fun Gang in the forest…together with the prior court jester.

Jevil´s chuckle suddenly echoed through the forest again, it sounded far away and yet so close at the same time. "Boo hoo hoo, the first game ruined by you, you! But joy and salvation in the face of my imagination, the game we will play will set us free, and saddened and frustrated you will never be! Lightners, follow the voice, and remember that you don´t have a choice!" his voice called out to them, the source of it seemingly shifting into one direction as they were soon able to hear it in front of them, closer than before.

"He is insane…but we must find and stop him, it´s the only thing we can do…" Ralsei said as he was shaking more than he would have liked to…Jevil scared him, not only because of his insane views but also because of how easily he could defeat the party if they weren´t careful. Susie didn´t look comfortable herself, and Kris appeared to be worried as well. "Ralsei…Jevil is powerful, you´d better drink that painkiller before your magic and his attacks inflict too much pain…" his friend ordered him, and Ralsei released his soul out of curiosity as Kris had mentioned the curse. He gulped as he saw the progress of the curse, covering more than half of his soul, more black than white by now.

"We´ll stop it, there is no way that we won´t," Kris said next to him as he felt an arm being wrapped around his shoulders. The dark prince wasn´t able to properly reply, the fear inside of him was overwhelming now that he had seen how dark the curse was. He simply nodded and took the flask with the green potion inside of it out of his bag, drinking the sour content after he removed the cork. The pain inside of his heart quickly turned into nothing more than the slightest sting he had ever felt, much to his relief. Ralsei recalled his soul back to his body, preparing himself for departure again; Jevil was waiting for them after all.

"I´m worried about it as well, Ralsei, but we can´t let it stop us. We are this close to saving you, it´s all or nothing now. Let´s pull through this, together," Kris whispered next to him, still having his arm wrapped around the fluffy prince, who blushed at the realization. "Th-thank you…" was the only thing that he found himself able to reply, resulting in Kris giving him a sincere hug for a few seconds before returning to his position at the front of the trio.

"Alright everyone, let´s confront Jevil and end this madness," Kris commanded the others, who nodded in unison. The group set in motion again, following the direction Jevil´s voice had come from. Everything remained quiet for the longest time, the rising tension clearly notable to Ralsei. The further they walked, the more chaos they were able to see…trees formed like an arrow pointing into the direction they were walking in, mushrooms that were shaped like clubs, diamonds, hearts and spades…without a doubt were they getting closer to Jevil.

"Lonely, lonely I have been, for the longest time nobody ever seen. The Lightners, at the door of their cage, will perform with me on this wonderful stage! Freedom is what I will have them learn, but easy it is not to earn. So all of you come forth for your act, what we will play is simply…perfect!" Jevil´s voice sang to them, closer than ever, right in front of them. As he sang his last line, the group stepped onto a large clearing, and Ralsei could feel that they had arrived at their destination…Jevil was here, without a doubt.

As the three of them gathered on the clearing, Ralsei was able to see the Devilsknife slowly descending on the other side of it, with Jevil transforming into his normal appearance after it was slightly above the ground. "Metamorphosis! Welcome, Ladies and Gentlemen, as excited have I never been! But a question still lingers in my mind: why were you hoping that me you would find?" Jevil greeted the group with an insane grin, but Ralsei could also see anticipation mixed into his expression.

"We were looking for you because we need your help. Our friend here-" Kris started to explain, but Jevil´s laugh cut him off. "Uee hee hee, the curse, the curse; could it be? A difference you could never make, remember that your hopes and dreams are only fake! I will show you appreciation in freedom, enjoying it do people only seldom! Let us play the game of numbers; if your health drops to zero, you will fall like the others! Now, now! Let the games begin!" Jevil cheered, and Ralsei could feel the wild energy inside of the jester building up…there was no way to avoid a fight with him now.

"Chaos, chaos! Catch me if you can, yet again!" Jevil shouted, teleporting away from his current location and reappearing behind the group. They were all looking into different directions as they didn´t know where he was going to be, but thanks to them being on the lookout Kris did see the jester. "Behind us!" he shouted, everyone looking into the direction Kris had specified. Jevil threw a volley of five spades at them, just for each spade to split into two smaller ones when they had travelled halfway to the group.

Kris swiftly stepped out of the way of the projectiles while Susie half-heartedly swung her axe to hit the spades away, but Ralsei was taken by surprise at Jevil´s altered attack and got hit in the chest by a spade, just to see Jevil disappearing again. He felt next to no pain, but he was angered by both Jevil´s behaviour and the attack hitting him. He tried his best to supress it, he didn´t know how long he was going to be able to keep that up however.

"Ralsei, watch out!" he heard Kris shout at him, and looked around in confusion. Jevil was almost directly next to his right, disappearing again just as he saw him…what remained were ten small spades flying into his direction, uncomfortably close. He was suddenly knocked aside from behind, throwing him out of the projectiles´ line of fire. He looked back and saw Susie next to him as she dodged the spades, while Kris blocked the next set of spades Jevil threw at him with his shield.

"Get up, man, and concentrate on the fight. This is Jevil we´re talking about," she growled at him before swinging her axe around to cleave the fourth volley of projectiles from the jester away. Ralsei got off the ground as Jevil teleported back to where he was when the battle had started, seemingly preparing himself for the next attack. "Thanks, Susie…" Ralsei managed to say before he gathered his courage and forced himself to calm down, chanting his lullaby while also transferring some of his magic energy into the notes he sang afterwards. He knew that doing so was going to tire Jevil somewhat, but they were going to need a lot more before Ralsei was going to be able to put him to sleep effectively.

"Ha ha, shall we play the game of rings, while freedom cheerfully to you sings?" Jevil asked in ecstasy, summoning ten spades around the group and letting them close in on them in a circular pattern. As the Fun Gang ran in a circle to avoid them, ten more spades appeared around them and closed in, though instead of doing so clockwise they did the other way around. Ralsei had expected Jevil to pull that trick again, and was therefore prepared to change the direction he was running in. A look over his shoulder confirmed that the others had seen it coming as well, rendering the second wave useless. As Jevil stopped attacking to prepare his next attack, Susie took a small object out of her pocket and spun it around in front of Jevil. Ralsei couldn´t make out what it was yet again, but he knew that it helped tiring the jester out.

"You have a special place in my heart, what we perform is a beautiful art!" Jevil exclaimed in joy, taking out two heart-bombs and holding them in his hands with an insane grin. The mad jester threw them to the left and right of the group, where they exploded into four hearts rotating around a centre point, moving towards Ralsei and the others. As he studied the movement of the hearts, the fluffy prince bravely walked towards them and carefully navigated through the four projectiles, just to be surprised by another heart-bomb landing right in front of him.

The four hearts coming out of it hit him into his chest, dropping the dark prince to the ground as another bomb flew into his direction and landed near him. Ralsei closed his eyes in fear and prepared himself for the impact, but he suddenly heard the projectiles hitting something metallic in front of him. Opening his eyes, he saw Kris standing before him, blocking the hearts with his shield while also offering his free hand towards Ralsei. He slowly took it and was helped up by Kris as the barrage of hearts came to an end, and as he looked around he saw that Susie had been hit by two hearts in the back as well.

"It´s no use like this, we need the potions to keep up with him. Ralsei, hand them over, please, and heal yourself…you´ve taken a lot of damage…" Kris said with a shaky voice, snapping Ralsei out of the hate that was stirring inside of him. He quickly reached into his bag and took the two remaining potions out, the yellow ones making the one who drank them more nimble. He gave them into Kris´ hand, who took them with a worried expression and handed one over to Susie. The dark prince focused on his energy inside of him after he had given the potions to Kris, and cast a healing spell onto his injured body, undoing most of the damage Jevil had inflicted.

"At least it doesn´t taste bad," he was able to hear Susie comment, and looking over to his friends showed that they both had consumed the potions. Ralsei readied himself for Jevil´s next attack, and as if on cue the jester turned into the Devilsknife. "Metamorphosis! Devilsknife is happy to see you again as well, for you chimes now the dead people´s bell!" he shouted before flying towards the group and creating three more versions of Devilsknife. Forming a square formation around the group, they started circling around the Fun Gang and striking inwards at the same time, with Ralsei barely dodging two of the scythes as they crossed paths near him. A look over his shoulder confirmed that Susie and Kris had dodged the attack with ease, thanks to being able to move faster now.

The scythes moved inwards two more times, with all three friends dodging them fairly easily. What they weren´t prepared for was for the scythes to suddenly duplicate again as they moved in for the fourth time, taking away the space to dodge that they had prior to this move. Ralsei was lucky to have found a gap between the scythes as they closed in on him, but as he looked back he saw both Kris and Susie being hit by one scythe each. They disappeared again, leaving only one Devilsknife floating in the air which turned back into Jevil again, who started dancing in the air. "Uee hee hee, successful you will never be! Surrender to the freedom I offer you, or your dreams never will come true!" he chanted to the group, but Ralsei was frozen in place. He had seen the Devilsknife striking Kris, he had seen it clearly. A new, sudden strong urge awakened inside of him, and he felt way more powerful than before the fight as well. Without even having to concentrate, a fireball appeared in his palm, and the next thing he knew was that it struck Jevil into his head, letting it bounce around like crazy due to being attached to a coil spring in his body.

"Ha ha, what excitement and fiery resolve, but it is not you around whom does the world revolve! Stronger may the curse you make, but I will win for freedom´s sake! Face the power of the card that´s wild, and will make you cry like a little child!" Jevil cheerfully shouted once his head stopped bouncing around, continuing to dance in the air. Another fireball formed in Ralsei´s palm, determined to strike the jester down for what he had done.

"Ralsei, stop it!" he heard a desperate voice shout at him…he again froze in place as he identified the voice as being the one of Kris. Looking to his right, he saw him and Susie looking at him in shock, snapping him out of his dark thoughts. With every bit of his will was he able to push the hate inside of him back, clearing his head and enabling him to think straight again. Did he really just attack another living being because of what he felt? Ralsei shuddered at the thought, but he then saw Kris slowly approaching him, a worried, shocked and compassionate look in his deep red eyes…

"Ralsei…please, stay strong…" he whispered as he wrapped an arm around the dark prince, effectively supressing the darkness inside of Ralsei. "I-I´m so sorry…" he managed to say as he started sniffing at the realization of his actions, but before Kris was able to comfort him further, Susie caught their attention. "Look, I don´t want to interrupt you two love-birds, but Jevil´s still here. So you better heal either of us and get on with the fight before I have to rip you apart from each other," she growled at them, refocusing Ralsei on the fight.

"Y-you´re right. I´ll heal you first, you have been hit before as well…" Ralsei replied as Kris took his arm away from him again to take his position on the battlefield again, and he prepared a healing spell for Susie. Kris on the other hand performed a pirouette to tire Jevil out a bit as well, as they knew that it had the same effect on the jester, albeit weaker than his other way of tiring Jevil. The fluffy prince cast his healing spell onto Susie, seemingly relieving the purple monster of a lot of discomfort. "Ugh, thanks…" she said before turning back to Jevil, who began to attack the group again.

"Piip piip, again we ride the carousel, a game I know how to play quite well!" the jester sang as he caused several rows of horses to appear, starting to circle around on the battlefield. They changed their altitude in a pattern, as well as their position on a horizontal level, requiring Ralsei to duck under and step out of the way of the horses, made harder by their speed increasing over the duration of Jevil´s attack. He did manage to avoid all of the horses, and as he looked over to Kris and Susie he was able to see that they had gotten away unharmed as well.

"Save your energy for a healing spell later on, Ralsei, I can take more than just one hit," Kris ordered his friend, and proceeded to gaze at Jevil in a strange and mystifying way. Ralsei knew that this was going to tire Jevil out more than his pirouette, but they were still going to need more than that to completely tire the jester out. And tire him out they were going to have to, as Jevil began with his next attack.

"Join the club, it is so fun; the games only now have just begun!" Jevil cheered as he took club-bombs into his hands, lobbing them at the group. Following the bombs with his eyes, Ralsei saw that the first few were no threat to him as the landed near Kris and Susie, spitting out two volleys of three clubs into their direction. Thanks to the potions making them more nimble, they got out of line of fire with ease, much to the dark prince´s relief. He concentrated on the bombs again as one landed in the middle of the group, the clubs flying into his direction. He prepared to dash through a gap between the clubs when another bomb landed to his right, the right part of the volleys blocking his dash between the first volley targeting him. He quickly stepped to the left to dash through the second volley´s left and middle clubs, but a third bomb exploded to his left, blocking this route as well. With nowhere left to go because the left clubs of the volley in front of him blocking a dash between the third one to his left, he prepared himself for the impact when a wave of rude magic blew the volley in front of him away, and adapting to the situation quickly albeit his surprise, he quickly dashed through the first volley, as it had almost reached him, while also evading the third one in the process.

"This guy took a liking to you, Ralsei. Maybe he didn´t enjoy you hitting him with a fireball…" he heard Susie comment, and he looked over to her to see the magic on her axe disappear again. Sometimes he was glad that she was still a rude person, as she was able to channel that into a magic attack. He didn´t like attacking people, but in this case it had probably saved his life. "Th-thanks, Susie, you saved me right there," Ralsei said with a shaky voice, causing her to just look away and huff at his words. "Eh, don´t mention it, and just do your thing to tire Jevil out, I want this to be over sooner than later," she replied, with the dark prince quickly focusing on the energy that rested inside of his soul…he felt the corruption stronger than before, wanting to take him over…he pushed it back, and transferred his magic into his voice as he chanted his lullaby to make Jevil more tired.

"Diamonds and hearts, anything I can do; and so I will to free all of you!" the dancing insane jester sang as diamonds began to appear in the ground beneath them, shooting upwards to strike the Fun Gang. Being used to his attack made spotting and dodging the diamonds a fairly easy task, until Ralsei was suddenly struck into his shoulders from above. Looking up, he saw that Jevil let a few diamonds rain down from above as well, and he was able to see how Kris and Susie were caught off-guard as well. Three diamonds hit Kris, one from above and two from below, while Susie was hit by two diamonds from above.

This was it. No more. Ralsei had finally seen enough, he wasn´t going to let Jevil hurt anyone ever again…and he wasn´t going to be stopped. He finally realized what the darkness in his heart was offering him: power. The power to stop anyone who meant harm to others. He was going to utilize it. A surge of power raced through Ralsei´s entire body, making him feel stronger than ever before. Was there a last struggle inside of him that he felt, desperately trying not to give in to this power? How foolish that part of him had been…how he had always been taken for a fool. Yes, Susie had always belittled him, and all Kris had ever done was so that he kept going, because he was somewhat useful to the Lightner. He had only been belittled and used, but this was going to change…and he was going to punish Jevil for his acts as well, he had turned against his fellow Darkners after all. The struggle…the last bit of clarity in mind…faded away…


	7. The Hate Revolving

Kris and Susie saw their friend distancing himself from them and Jevil, until a triangle was formed between the three groups: Ralsei on one end, the jester on another and the remainder of the Fun Gang on the third end. The two looked at the dark prince, who was seemingly more prepared for combat than before. And the look in his eyes…there was no hint of the warm and happy light that shone in them, it was something dark and sinister…it seemed as if the darkness inside of Ralsei´s heart had taken full control this time, and this meant that the two of them were even more endangered than before.

"Wonder who keeps the world spinning, but it only matters that I am winning!" Jevil sang while he kept dancing, a ring of 10 spades appearing around Kris, Susie and Ralsei respectably. As they closed in in a circular pattern, Kris saw that Ralsei dodged them with ease, even when more spades appeared and moved in in a random order. He and Susie dodged the first spades as well, but as they were close to each other, some of the spades that missed either of them continued on flying towards the other friend, making evading all of the spades a much harder task. Thanks to the potion they had consumed, they were able to let all of the spades miss however. Jevil´s attack ended sooner than usual, probably because he had to invest extra energy to also attack Ralsei, who was far away from them.

Kris and Susie knew that the fluffy prince was a vital part of their team, so instead of trying to stop Jevil on their own, they had to bring Ralsei back to his senses…one way or another. Kris began to approach him, causing Susie to follow him as splitting now was probably not the best idea. As he had taken his first few steps, however, the dark prince stretched his hands out, letting volleys of fireballs shoot out of his palms into the direction of both Jevil and the Fun Gang. Kris and Susie were surprised by being attacked by him, and thus got hit by one fireball each before adjusting to the situation. With the number of fireballs being too high to effectively approach him, they had to keep dodging and wait for an opportunity to do so.

Jevil on the other hand could be heard as well, both his shouts and the sound of his coil spring indicating that he had been hit at least once himself. Ralsei finally stopped summoning fireballs as he seemed to fight with the pain inside of his heart, made evident by him clutching both of his hands at where it was located. Even the painkilling potion seemed to have its limits, and him using that much of his magic and using the hate itself seemed to cause him enough pain to break his concentration for a bit. Kris and Susie used this moment to close the distance, but Jevil seemed to have grown impatient to have his turn again.

"Keeping up you kids are doing, but my goal I´ll keep pursuing!" Jevil chanted, letting horses and ducks appear which started rotating in opposite directions around the battlefield, altering their height and horizontal position every second while also quickly picking up more speed. With the threats coming from both sides, Susie got hit by two of the ducks, though Kris managed to escape the whole mess unharmed. Ralsei was less lucky and had to take hits from two horses himself, but it only seemed to infuriate him further. As he was hit a second time, he folded his hands and summoned a whirlwind around himself, sending the ducks and horses flying all over the clearing. Jevil got hit by two of his own attacks, and Kris suffered a hit as well. He felt how he was near his limit, as he had taken several hits by now without any healing received. Susie was lucky enough to be spared of Ralsei´s counterattack, but she was doing rather worse than good as well.

As both Jevil and Ralsei´s actions stopped, Kris took a dark candy he had carried with him for cases of emergencies like this, and ate the treat. He didn´t know how it worked, but the healing properties of the sweet were most welcome in this moment. Healing some of the damage he had taken by eating the treat, he continued walking towards Ralsei, closing in on his friend. Kris was close by now, close enough that Ralsei started to back off; both of them stopped when Jevil announced his next attack however.

"Nu-ha! So much fun I´ve never had, even when your intentions are so bad!" the jester shouted, taking out spade-bombs and throwing them onto the battlefield. Their explosions let ten spades shoot out in all directions, and as he kept throwing them, dodging became a near impossible task, especially as the spades split into two smaller ones after a bit of flying. The first few bombs landed to the left of Kris and Susie and to Ralsei´s right, making them run away from each other again as they tried to find gaps in the storm of spades. As Jevil kept throwing bombs, they landed next to Ralsei and behind Kris and Susie as well, taking each member of the Fun Gang by surprise. Kris and Susie both suffered a hit from behind as the spades were set free close to them, while Ralsei was caught between two bombs and endured four hits at once. Against everyone´s expectations, however, the dark prince was still standing after the hits, shaking in both hatred and pain. As another bomb flew into his direction, he sent a fireball from his palm against it to throw it back to Jevil, who got hit by a spade when the bomb exploded in front of him.

"Ah ha ha ha! Vigilante and out for a fight, I will soon give what serves you right!" the crazed jester announced as he kept on dancing in the air, though it seemed that his movements were slower than at the start of the fight. Kris paid it no heed for the time being, however, as he was focused on a fluffy prince. "Ralsei, stop it, please! Come back to your senses…come back to our side!" the human pleaded, but the look the goat monster shot at him was crushing, filled with hatred and disgust. "You have only used me to play the hero, Kris; I will make sure to eliminate all those who oppose us Darkners! And I´ll gladly start with you," his friend snarled back at him, his voice cracking with hate like they had seen only once in their life yet…when they had faced the King on their first adventure.

A ring of fire appeared in front of Ralsei, floating into the direction of Kris and Susie while rotating around its horizontal axis. The Lightner took a few steps back before running forward and jumping through the ring as it was aligned vertically, only to stand in front of another ring that closed in the same way as the first one. Kris timed his advances and jumps to get through the rings unharmed, and stood only a few steps away from his friend. A look over his shoulder showed him that Susie didn´t suffer from another hit either, but Jevil too didn´t want to let up.

"In my heart a beauty is joying, all while with you I´ll keep on toying!" Jevil sang as clubs appeared around the battlefield, shooting three spreads of bullets at the other participants of the battle. Gotten used to being bombarded from all sides, Kris took out his shield to block off the bullets in front of him while he looked out for bullets from his left. Susie got behind his back and looked for bullets from the right and behind him, and with few spoken words were they able to navigate through the storm of projectiles. Ralsei on the other hand was having none of Jevil´s shenanigans anymore, and created a pillar of fire around himself which destroyed any projectile coming in contact with it.

Kris and Susie stood there, mouth wide agape as the dark prince showcased his true powers. He was way more powerful than either of them had anticipated, but Kris could see how Ralsei was slowly becoming tired because of his excessive use of magic energy, even though he had the potion to sustain his energy working against it. Their fluffy friend stopped his attack as he seemed to be overpowered by the pain inside of his heart again, allowing Kris to sprint towards him in order to close the final distance. "A-away, traitor and harbinger of doom!" Ralsei nervously yelled, slowly trying to back off further, but Kris was too determined to stop.

He was right in front of Ralsei and prepared to bring him back to his senses, but Jevil stepped in in this moment again. "Metamorphosis! Smiling does even Devilsknife, and for freedom we do strive!" Jevil announced as he turned into Devilsknife again, creating four copies around himself, of which he and three others positioned themselves around the group just as in the first time he had attacked them this way, oscillating around the battlefield and striking inwards every now and then. As the scythes went in for the second time, the fifth Devilsknife, now enlarged and in a distinct red, appeared near the group and flew towards them. Kris and Susie had expected Jevil to use this strategy and were able to dodge all of the scythes, but Ralsei suffered a hit from the enormous scythe.

The fluffy prince got knocked to the ground as the fifth Devilsknife hit him from behind, and as they moved out, the other four scythes duplicated again to become eight of the dangerous weapons, striking inward and threatening to hurt Ralsei further. Kris leapt next to his friend and pulled him out of line of fire of the floating scythes, just before one would have struck the goat monster, who appeared to be weakened by Jevil´s attack. "L-let go of me!" the dark prince shouted, though notably less furious than before, his attempts to free himself weak…

The sudden sound of metal clashing against metal caught the attention of the two boys on the ground, looking up to see Susie trying to hold off the large red Devilsknife as it tried to get past her to strike them with her axe. Ralsei´s left arm was still free, and a fireball appeared in it, flying into the direction of the purple monster. "Susie, behind you!" Kris shouted in desperation, knowing that a successful hit on her was able to potentially end all of them. She looked back over her shoulder, just to see the fireball coming…and miss her by a most narrow amount of space, hitting the Devilsknife instead and letting it fly off with the combined effort of Susie pushing against it.

Kris was quick to react when he saw the scythes closing in for another strike, and pulled Ralsei away from where they were in order to let Jevil and his copies pass them. The scythes disappeared after this attempt, leaving only one Devilsknife, which turned back into Jevil who kept on dancing in the air, notably less energetic than at the start of the fight. Kris was still holding the fluffy prince, who still tried to free himself with weak attempts. "U-unhand me, you deceitful awfulness they call a 'hero'," he shouted while he weakly kicked around, hoping to escape the human.

Kris didn´t say a word, and instead spun Ralsei around so that his friend faced him, and took him into the most sincere hug he had ever given the dark prince. Ralsei let out a small yelp of surprise, but his resistance was quickly eliminated by this act…slowly, he felt it again…Kris, the one he loved…his friends…his mind snapped back to order as he realised what wrongs the hate of the Spade King had made him believe, what it had made him do. He loved his friends, but most importantly did he love Kris…he wanted to make him happy, he never wanted to hurt anyone…Ralsei broke down in tears as he hugged Kris back as tight as he could.

He felt Kris´ hand go through the fur on the back of his head, all while whispering words to calm him down, assure him that everything was alright. It was in this very moment that Ralsei was as happy as he had never been before, but deep down he knew that the adventure wasn´t over yet. "Kris, you better get what you are doing over there done before long," Susie yelled over, causing both of them to look over to her. She seemed to take a step back in surprise as she looked at Ralsei, as if she was questioning whether he was the same again or not.

"Dude, is that you?" she asked in what appeared to be uncertainty, but Ralsei just smiled at her and gave her a nod. "Yes, I´m back to my former self, thanks to Kris…" he replied as his face got hotter, but he chose to ignore it. What he didn´t choose to ignore was Jevil, as he seemed to want to bring the fight to a close to 'free them'. "It´s more exciting than I can take, your will to fight I am going to break!" Jevil yelled in ecstasy as he teleported around the clearing, throwing two diamonds at the group after appearing in a location, just to teleport away again and throw two more diamonds.

Jevil kept teleporting and throwing diamonds for several seconds, the amount of projectiles making dodging a hard task. Kris got hit by two diamonds during the attack, but Ralsei stayed focused this time and effectively hindered the hate from taking him over again. The dark prince himself found himself to be targeted less than his friends, and so he had an easier time stepping away from the diamonds. He secretly was glad that he wasn´t targeted more, because he felt how weak he was thanks to being hit multiple times earlier in the fight…

Looking over to Susie showed him that she had gotten away unharmed this time, and he was glad to see Jevil´s attack come to a stop after some time. Ralsei would have liked to heal his friends first, but he knew that Kris would want him to heal himself first, so he channelled his energy into a silent prayer to heal the wounds he had to endure during the fight. He also felt how his pool of energy was slowly nearing depletion, meaning that they were going to have to end the fight soon if they wanted to prevent Ralsei from fainting. Meanwhile, Susie took out the small object from her pocket and spun it around in front of Jevil again, inducing more tiredness to the jester so that Ralsei could pacify him soon. But Jevil wasn´t giving up, made evident by how he pulled out his strongest attacks now.

"Boisengirls, this is it now! Come and take your final bow!" the mad jester chanted, taking out bombs of all four suits and throwing them across the clearing. Ralsei dreaded this attack almost as much as Jevil´s most powerful one, but he knew that they were going to have to see this through in order to both stop Jevil and cure his soul and heart from the hate inside of him. He had trouble keeping track of the different suits and bombs, narrowly dodging a line of diamonds as two clubs suddenly passed in front of him, four rotating hearts suddenly coming straight at him…he knew that he and his friends weren´t going to survive this onslaught for long, and so he mustered up his energy and created a whirlwind on the battlefield, causing all suits and bombs to fly around the clearing without touching the ground.

He concentrated and commanded the whirlwind to shrink towards a far edge of the clearing, the projectiles moving with it. Jevil had stopped throwing bombs by now, appearing to look really tired as well, leaving Ralsei to move all of the remaining suits and bombs away from everyone. Once they were on the opposite side of the clearing, he stopped the whirlwind and let all of the projectiles drop to the ground, with the bombs exploding there and sending out the projectiles at the group. As they were so far away, however, they had an easy time seeing them coming and dodging them, especially as they all came from only one direction.

Getting away unharmed, Ralsei channelled more of his energy into a healing spell to cure the wounds Susie had to suffer from. He felt how exhausted he was from fighting and using loads of magic, he was secretly hoping that he´d have enough energy left to pacify Jevil at the end of the fight. Kris used his available time to gaze at Jevil in a hypnotizing way, tiring the jester further, who already seemed to be on the verge of falling asleep…but all too well could Ralsei remember the last time he had pulled a trick on them.

"Tiring, tiring you do me; could the end of all this be?" Jevil said in a tired voice, again letting diamonds strike at the friends from above and underneath them. This time, they were prepared for this scenario, and as the diamonds were a lot slower than in his previous attempt, they were easily able to dodge all of them. After Jevil´s attack stopped, Ralsei sang his lullaby again while using his magic to enhance its effect, making Jevil even more tired. He had to be close to being able to be pacified, but the dark prince felt that the finale was going to be a dangerous one. As if on cue, Jevil´s expression lightened up and he began to dance again, turning into Devilsknife before ascending into the air above them.

"Kidding! Final Chaos, it is here; the damage of it will be severe!" the jester shouted at them from above before large versions of the Devilsknife began to fall down towards the group, hitting the ground and erupting into beams of light. The three friends scattered, and Ralsei lost track of his teammates as his view got blocked by the light created by Jevil´s attack. He kept looking up to see the scythes coming, dodging to the best of his abilities. As he ran, he suddenly bumped into something and dropped to the ground, looking down revealed Kris to be the one he had run into. They both looked at each other before looking up again, seeing two scythes falling straight to their position. Ralsei froze in shock as he realized that he didn´t have time to run away, but was surprised to see one scythe being hit by rude elemental magic, the second one being hit by a thrown axe quickly afterwards.

This caused both scythes to land away from them, sparring them of being hit. The two boys looked over to Susie, who stood there with an annoyed expression. "What? Get up already, I´m hungry and want to eat something, so let´s get this over with," she commented, before a scythe landed behind her, the beam of light erupting from its position knocking her forward to them. "Susie!" Ralsei shouted, before Jevil could be heard from above. "The true and neo chaos, buh-bye!" he exclaimed, several scythes falling towards their close proximity. Kris and Ralsei quickly got up and helped Susie onto her feet, all three members of the Fun Gang running around and dodging the scythes that fell down at them in the same order they had in the first fight with Jevil. The last, final Devilsknife was an exceptionally huge one, slowly descending towards the group. Susie picked her axe up again, and shot another Rude Buster at it, making it disappear and leaving Jevil behind, who started to dance through the air so fast that Ralsei was able to see afterimages of him.

Susie took the small object out of her pocket again and spun it around, inducing more tiredness to Jevil. He seemed to be tired enough to be pacified by now, but before Ralsei was able to channel his spell, Jevil quickly perked up again. "This body cannot be killed, because with freedom it is filled!" he shouted as he summoned his ring-around attack again, but it was slower than the previous ones. The Fun Gang easily dodged the spades both because of this and because they were used to the attack by now, rendering Jevil´s attacks near ineffective. Ralsei could see him hover in front of them, looking tired…he knew that it was time to end the fight, especially because he had almost no energy left inside of him. He channelled his energy and cast a spell to pacify Jevil, hitting the jester with it and causing him to land on the ground.

"Uee hee hee, I´m tired…tired out as you can see! Just like then, freedom you deny, but let me tell you that the end is nigh! Those who then are not freed, will all fall when the Knight does his deed. Lightners, your success I highly doubt, the chaos will leave you in a shroud…a mischief-mischief, the battle will only be brief! For now I will let you go, is this the end? I don´t think so!" Jevil said to the group with a mad grin, beginning to hover above the ground again and seemingly preparing to take his leave. He knew how risky it was, but Ralsei channelled all of his remaining energy that he was able to spend into another, stronger spell to pacify Jevil again.

The sphere formed in his hands, and as he transferred more and more energy into it, his vision became more and more blurry…sounds around him dampening…his movements feeling sluggish and heavy…with every last bit of focus and determination he had inside of him, he threw the sphere at where Jevil had been when he last saw him. A faint sound of something dropping into the grass in front of him was the last thing he heard, before everything turned dark.

Ralsei dropped to the ground, unconscious, and the others knew what he had done. Jevil was sleeping on the ground in front of them as well after their friend had hit him with another pacify spell…but the dark prince had taken a great risk with this move, as it might not have been enough for the jester to fall asleep, or that he´d completely deplete all of his energy, endangering his health in the process…it seemed that Ralsei had just fallen into a deep slumber after his excessive use of energy though, breathing slowly and calmly on the ground.

Kris knelt down next to his friend to check on him, but as soon as he touched the dark prince, his hand jerked back again, almost as if it had been stung by something. "W-we must hurry!" he said in a shaken voice as he quickly got up again, running over to Jevil and picking the jester up as he was lighter than Ralsei. "Why the sudden rush?" Susie asked as she went to pick Ralsei up, but she was startled when she touched him as well. "I can feel it, too..."

Susie threw the fluffy prince over her shoulder, and the two made haste to walk the way they had come from back as quickly as possible. Ralsei´s hat fell off of his head a few minutes into the quick march, with Kris picking it up before continuing on their path. Ralsei didn´t seem to be sleeping peacefully anymore…with the hat gone and his face clearly visible, it was obvious that he was suffering. Kris and Susie had both felt it…the curse´s progress.


	8. The Evil Within

Pain…it was the very first thing that Ralsei felt. It was strong, almost as strong as before he had taken the potion to kill the pain…but the potion was still in effect, or was it? He realized that he didn´t know how long he had been knocked out…and he didn´t even know where he was. Slowly, his eyes opened to meet a warm and flickering light, the source he determined to be a lit candle after a few seconds. The smell of the area he was in also seemed to be familiar, and he slowly put the pieces of this puzzle together…was he in Seam´s shop? He tried to look around, but found that his body only seemed to execute his commands at a slow pace…he felt truly exhausted.

"Shh, don´t exhaust yourself further…the amount of energy you´ve used left you weak and vulnerable, you need to recover first. Rest easy, Ralsei…" he was able to hear someone say close to him…somewhere on his right, but he couldn´t turn his head. The voice…ignited a spark of joy inside of him, a joy he only felt while being with one person…

"Kris?" he weakly managed to say in great exhaustion, and he felt a touch on his head a few moments afterwards, going through the fur on it…was it Kris´ hand? He didn´t know, he was barely able to recognize anything around him, but the belief in Kris being there with him made it bearable. "I´m here with you…just rest and recover for now, alright? We´re at Seam´s shop, he is currently trying to bring Jevil back to sanity. It´ll all work out…" Kris answered.

"Kris…what…happened?" Ralsei asked, slowly bringing out each word individually with a lot of effort. The caressing from the human next to him kept up, seemingly becoming even more gentle and affectionate. "You´ve used up pretty much all of your energy to put Jevil to sleep, and you succeeded in doing so…Susie and I rushed you two back here, so that Seam could try and take care of things as soon as possible…" his friend answered, but the dark prince was able to hear how much fear had gathered in the voice he loved to hear. As if sensing his observation, he heard Kris stepping to his side in a position where he was able to see the Lightner…as well as the fear and concern in his eyes.

"We…we rushed here because we were able to feel it, Ralsei…how far and strong it has grown. I think the battle with Jevil had rushed its progress…and Seam himself said that time is running short, very short in fact…" Kris continued, his voice shaking and cracking with fear. The pain inside of Ralsei illustrated what he meant all too well…the curse taking him over had also made it progress quicker, meaning that he had even less time than before…it all came down to Seam now, as Jevil was their only hope for salvation. He wanted to say something, anything to calm Kris down again, but his mind was racing from one point to another with no end in sight…he couldn´t form any sentence that would have helped in any way.

He just stayed where he was, looking into the worried eyes of Kris that he could get lost in forever…but he knew that it was possible that he couldn´t enjoy it for much longer. The pain inside of him was more than he felt able to handle, making him wonder how far the curse had actually grown…but he didn´t want to release his soul, not because he feared his current state, but because of Kris. His friend seemed to be worried and frightened beyond comparison, letting him see his corrupted soul now was beyond bad of an idea. And he also felt tired, too tired to keep his eyes open.

"Kris…I…want to sleep…" he managed to mumble as he felt himself drifting into the depths of sleep again, the world around him becoming darker again. He faintly felt his fur on his head being moved a bit again, most likely it was Kris petting him once more. "Rest easy, Ralsei…we will get through this, together…" was the last thing he was just able to hear, before sleep took him away.

The square in front of his castle…Ralsei immediately recognized it as he looked towards Castle Town. He felt so different, free of what had been tormenting him for the past few days…but he still felt the curse´s presence, really close to him in fact. Looking around the immediate area, something he spotted made him take a few steps back in shock and surprise. A figure was slowly approaching him, wearing a black hat, a black robe with a cracked green heart on it, green glasses…black fur. What was approaching him seemed to be another him, though with a slightly altered appearance. The figure stepped closer, slowly, menacingly…Ralsei slowly took more steps back, but he felt like this was a confrontation he was not able to avoid. He stopped backing off, letting the being close the distance, until it stood only a few steps away from him. He was able to see what he had assumed to be the case: this being was a replica of him…and with all of the hate radiating from it in waves, he had an idea as to what it was.

"So we meet at last. I can finally claim you as mine," the figure spoke, a voice cracked with hatred and pure evil, sending a shiver down Ralsei´s spine. He tried to suppress his fear, but to no avail: he was shaking like crazy, never before had he been that afraid of another being. "W-who are you?" he demanded to know, making the being chuckle. It took its hat off, but in contrast to Ralsei, the fur of it stayed black. It took a bow before putting the hat on again, chuckling another time…a sinister and dark sound produced by this darkness.

"You already know, don´t you? It´s simple, really: I´m you, just in better! You are a weakling, always letting others push you around and step over you. Your naivety and purity makes me sick, I HATE it with every fibre of my being…I think I´ll take a name that´s a bit different from yours, because I don´t want to share the name of a pathetic pushover like you. Why don´t you call me…Darksei? I think it´s fitting, though I might as well spare you the formalities…I am going to turn you into a smouldering piece of fur, and then take full control over Ralsei again. And this time, I will completely destroy you and make sure that the real Ralsei stays this way…the way of the Darkners! No Kris is going to help you…ugh, it makes me SICK to think about you two…" the being told him, making Ralsei step back again…was this being really him, completely consumed by hate and darkness?

"W-what do you mean?" the dark prince asked in fear, but he had an idea on what it was. Darksei cackled before a fireball appeared in his palm, a black flame with destructive potential. "What I mean, you fool, is that I will destroy the nice part of Ralsei and be the only thing he knows, so no matter what Kris or anyone did, it would be in vain. And even if they managed to bring Jevil to cure him of me, there would be nothing left but an empty shell. There won´t be a good outcome for you and the Lightners, that is my sworn cause. And now…DISAPPEAR!" the creature of hate spoke, shouting its last words at him before throwing the black flame into his direction.

Ralsei realized that this was his very own fight, the fight against the enemy within him…and he was going to have to triumph on his own as well. Nobody but him was able to beat the hate back, but an opponent who knew your every move was a dangerous and tough to beat one. He gracefully jumped out of the way of the fireball, letting it harmlessly hit a wall instead. He knew that he was fighting on his own, but the idea of attacking someone else went against his beliefs…if he did so, he wouldn´t be a bit better than his hateful counterpart. Ralsei was better than that, so he decided on another strategy: to tire his opponent out and put him to sleep, just like with Jevil.

More dark flames shot from Darksei´s palms, forcing Ralsei to start moving around the hateful replica of him in a circle, while also speeding up as the fireballs came closer and closer over the course of the attack. Soon he started to feel slightly exhausted from running, proving to him that he was not going to outlast the dark being´s stamina that way. In an effort to bring this attack to an end, he sprinted forward to gain distance between him and the fireballs, stopping, focusing and creating a whirlwind under Darksei afterwards, which spun him around and slightly lifted him into the air.

Darksei´s flames came to a stop as he became disoriented, allowing Ralsei to catch his breath again before singing his lullaby, infusing the melody with magic to strengthen the effect it had just like he did against Jevil. A sudden strong blast of air knocked him down to the ground; Darksei had to have cast it while he was in the air, breaking Ralsei´s concentration and letting the whirlwind disappear again. He quickly got off the ground again, mere moments before dark stars appeared above the creature of hate which held its left hand above its hat.

Pointing it at Ralsei, the stars shot towards the fluffy prince, scattering to block his movements and thereby inhibiting his ability to dodge the attack. With a swift swing of his arm, a volley of fireballs emerged from his palm and collided with the stars, making them disappear alongside his own flames. More stars appeared in the hands of Darksei, flying towards Ralsei at his command. The prince of darkness gathered his courage with a plan in mind, beginning to walk towards Darksei while doing his best to either evade the stars or destroy them with flames he summoned from his palms.

He managed to walk closer and closer, picking up his pace and preparing a spell behind his back with his left hand. Darksei seemed to be infuriated by his persistence and began to summon additional fireballs in his other hand, doubling the amount of projectiles Ralsei had to deal with. A black star managed to scrape his right arm as he tried to dodge it, making him flinch and stop for a short moment, enough for a fireball to directly hit him and setting his robe on fire.

Ralsei screeched in shock and pain as the dark flames began to eat away at his robe while also burning him, intensified by the pain of another dark star hitting him head on, sending him to the ground. The flames still threatening to consume both him and his robe, the dark prince managed to collect himself and dispel them using magic on his own. As he refocused on the battlefield around him, he was shocked to see Darksei tower above him with two more fireballs in his palms, the desire to destroy him clearly visible in the creature´s eyes. Thinking quickly, Ralsei closed his eyes and lifted his hands, creating orbs of light inside of them which he put as much energy into as he was able to before reaching the spell´s limit.

A scream from Darksei confirmed to him that he had blinded the being for a short moment, allowing him to let the orbs disappear and open his eyes again. Looking around, he saw the hateful creature stumble backwards while covering its eyes, to which he quickly got off the ground again and chanted his lullaby, louder and with more magic fused into the notes he sang to further induce tiredness to his opponent. A sudden spike in energy in front of him was what made him stop and focus on Darksei again, who had recovered from the blinding effect of his last counterattack.

"ENOUGH! Just die already, you worthless and disposable annoyance!" the dark being shouted at him, pressing its palms onto the ground before sending magic energy into it, causing black pillars of fire to erupt from various spots on the battlefield. Sensing the hate flowing through the ground, Ralsei quickly jumped backwards before a flame pillar shot into the sky inches away from his face, threatening to melt his glasses and set his clothes ablaze again. Taking more steps backwards, he suddenly felt the hate creeping up behind him, forcing him to jump sideways as a black flame shot out of the ground where he would have been standing.

More and more flames shot out of the ground as the first ones died down again, with Ralsei having trouble to keep up with all of the flames. He knew that he was not going to last long in this attack, and he needed a solution as quickly as possible. But how was he going to stop Darksei this time without attacking him? Sure, his spells wouldn´t deal much damage if he did it right, but he still didn´t want to harm others, even hitting him with his scarf-

Ralsei realised that he still had an opportunity, his scarf was flexible and didn´t only have to be used to attack others or keep him warm. He began removing his scarf as he continued to run around the battlefield, sensing the destructive flames shooting out of the ground just in time for him to evade them. At one jump his hat fell off his head, but he knew that he had to focus on winning this fight, and so he kept unwrapping himself from the scarf until he held it in his hands in its entire length. Then he waited for an opportunity where he had clear line of sight towards Darksei, as he knew that he was only going to have one shot at stopping him.

Ralsei saw his opportunity as all flames between him and Darksei died down, and so he threw one end of his scarf as if he would attack with it, guiding it with his magic to quickly wrap itself around both of Darksei´s arms, which he still had pressing his hands onto the ground. The dark creature quickly looked at his arms and then to Ralsei as the scarf wrapped itself around his arms several times, just before the fluffy prince pulled on the end of the scarf he was still holding, pulling Darksei´s arm away from under him and forcing him to fall flat on the ground without his arms supporting him anymore.

With the magic stopped, Ralsei didn´t have to worry about flames anymore, and quickly ran over to Darksei with the scarf in hand, quickly tying the legs of the dark being together with its hands, rendering his counterpart unable to move. Darksei screeched on the ground, pure hatred seemingly erupting in the sounds he made while trying to free himself. Ralsei closed his eyes and focused, making sure to do his best with singing his lullaby and transferring more magic into the notes. He sang with passion and determination, willing to finish the fight against the darkness that had been created.

As Ralsei kept on singing, he noticed the screeching becoming more and more quiet, and eventually stopping entirely, prompting him to open his eyes and stop singing. What he saw was a completely tired, twisted version of himself on the ground, only capable of glaring at him with disgust and hatred, mixed with tiredness. Ralsei got near Darksei´s head, kneeling down next to him. He wanted to see if he was somehow able to reason with his opposite side, to make it more bearable for the both of them.

"What do you want?! You have won, I can´t believe it, but you and your stupid tactics have won…go and leave me alone!" Darksei snarled at him, but the prince of darkness didn´t allow himself to be intimidated anymore. "Look, I wish that it didn´t have to be this-" Ralsei started, but he was quickly cut off by his counterpart. "SHUT UP! Your blind naivety makes me sick, it aggravates me to no end, I HATE IT! If you really want to do me a favour, then use your sparkly friendship magic and put me to sleep so that I don´t have to take all of that DISGUSTING trash flowing from your mouth in an endless stream anymore. Could you do that, HUH?!" Darksei shouted at him, hate and pure hate only raging in his words.

"So it seems like I can´t reason with you after all…this blind hate and aggression is frightening to me, but please know that I don´t want things to be this way…" Ralsei whispered as he stood up again, stretching his hands out and preparing a spell to pacify Darksei and put the hateful being to sleep. The orb of magic formed in his hands, and with one last sad look at what was another him, he prepared to use the magic on him. "At least sleep well, Darksei…and I´m sorry," Ralsei said with bitterness, letting the orb descend onto Darksei and putting him to sleep.

Ralsei stood in silence as he watched his dark and hateful counterpart sleeping on the ground, pondering about what had just happened. He realized that by curing him of the curse, he was going to kill Darksei…and even though it was a destructive, hateful replica of him, he couldn´t stand the thought of ending his existence. If he wanted to survive and keep his friends happy, however, there was no going around it, even more so if he wanted to protect them from the destructive potential that Darksei was.

He looked around the square where the battle had taken place, spotting his hat on the ground some distance away from him. This had been a dangerous battle, one he hadn´t even been convinced of being able to win. Ralsei walked over to his hat and picked it up, slowly putting it on his head again…he knew that it had to go either of two ways, it was either him or Darksei. He went back to his sleeping counterpart, kneeling down next to him again before closing his eyes and quietly beginning to sing his lullaby once more, to soothe both his and Darksei´s mind. Over time his singing became more and more quiet, until it turned into humming, while he slowly began to feel warmer.

A soft and warm touch to his head made him open his eyes again, though he quickly had to close them again due to the environment being a lot brighter than before he had closed them. As he slowly opened them again, he was met by a warm, flickering light, a lit candle being its source. He found his hat not to be on his head anymore, while he himself was tucked into a blanket on a comfortable bed…was he in Seam´s shop again, and had it all just been a dream? He felt just as exhausted as if he had fought a battle though, he was very unsure…had the battle with Darksei really happened inside of him?

"How are you feeling, Ralsei?" a familiar warm voice asked next to his head, making him turn his head a bit to see a pair of red shining gems, filled with warmth and care. He smiled a bit at Kris, who looked both worried and also…Ralsei couldn´t describe what else he saw in Kris´ expression, it seemed familiar and at the same time different from anything he had seen before. "I feel exhausted, Kris…I´m not sure if I have just dreamt or if I´ve just gone through a real experience."

"What do you mean? You have been sleeping here for quite some time, so I would assume that you have gone through a dream, you even started humming shortly before you woke up," Kris wondered, a questioning and curious look on his face. Ralsei thought about the events again…he also felt how the curse inside of him seemed to be weaker than before he fell asleep, as if it wasn´t actively doing anything. "I´m not sure…it feels as if I´ve really done what I did while I was asleep. I met another version of me, the one completely consumed by the hate and everything…we fought, we fought for control, he battled to destroy me. I managed to emerge victorious in the end, and now it feels as if the curse inside of me isn´t doing anything right now…as if I had managed to stop it for the time being," the dark prince explained, thinking about it again…it made sense to him, and yet it seemed like a crazy idea.

Kris nodded as Ralsei told him about the events that had happened during his sleep, and it seemed as if he believed the story he had just heard, taking Ralsei into a hug after he was finished retelling his experiences. "If you really feel like it has halted its advance, then it is entirely possible that this was all real…you seemed to be in a bit of discomfort in your sleep, but I had blamed it onto the curse itself, not you actively fighting for control…I´m glad that you were able to win…" the Lightner told him, his voice filled with relief. Ralsei returned the hug, feeling not as exhausted anymore, also thanks to the sleep having restored some of the energy that he had utterly spent to pacify Jevil.

"Kris, I…I feel uncomfortable with putting an end to the curse, now that I saw that it has an actual form itself. Does it deserve that?" he asked his friend, who backed his head off again and looked into his eyes, seemingly thinking about what Ralsei had said. Kris opened his mouth and looked like he wanted to reply, but then stopped for a moment and closed it again, apparently rethinking what he had wanted to say. "Well…that is hard to say, to be honest. I want you to stay with me and survive, yes, but that it may be at the expense of another life is…hitting hard, admittedly. Though if we let it survive, it would be at the expense of your own life…it doesn´t deserve to be killed off like that, but I fear that we don´t have a choice in that regard…it is either you or the curse, one of you has to go," Kris replied after a few moments, reaffirming Ralsei´s view on the whole matter.

"I see…thank you, that is the conclusion I have come to as well…" Ralsei said after a while, closing his eyes to try and calm himself…it was a most unpleasant thought, but he knew that there was no going around it. He suddenly felt Kris close in on him again, reminding him that his friend had been hugging him the entire time. He felt his face getting hot at the thought, but he couldn´t complain…Kris being with him was what he wanted more than anything else, and so he was happy that his friend was there with him and cared for him like this.

Ralsei silently rested in the embrace of his friend, breathing calmly and with significantly less discomfort thanks to the curse being inactive for the time being. How long had he been sleeping again anyways? And how long had Seam been trying to fix Jevil´s mind for now? Things he didn´t know, but he decided to let it all come to him when the time was right…Seam was going to do his best, that he was sure of. As if on cue, he could hear a faint knock, probably coming from the owner of the small shop. Kris let go of Ralsei and looked towards his right, most likely into the direction of the door. "Come in," Kris spoke, followed by the sound of a door handle slowly being pulled down and the door opening, accompanied by a squeaking sound.

"Pardon me for disturbing…oh, I see that our young friend is awake," a voice said, with Ralsei identifying it as the one of Seam. He turned his head to look at the old retired magician, who seemed to be happier than he had ever seen him before. Even his smile seemed to be genuine, igniting another spark of joy within Ralsei. The shopkeeper quickly walked out of the room again, just to come back with two cups and a can, most likely filled with tea. Ralsei´s assumption was proven to be correct when he put a cup aside and filled the other one with near boiling hot tea, handing the cup over to the dark prince, who thanked him with a nod while smiling.

"So, how are things with Jevil going, Seam?" Kris asked him as the old man poured himself a cup of tea as well, setting the can aside after he had done so. "Well," he began before taking a sip of his tea, "I have managed to do it! With persistence and effort, I have managed to restore his sanity. I explained the whole story to him as far as I was able to, after which he went and left the shop, claiming to return to Card Castle and catch up with all the inhabitants."

"W-what?! What about Ralsei and the curse, why wouldn´t he cure it?!" Kris exploded, infuriated, surprising Ralsei to a point where he almost spilled his tea all over himself, though he just managed to keep it inside of his cup. Whatever Jevil´s reason was, he had a suspicion that the jester had thought about this before making that decision, so he decided to calmly wait for Seam to continue, taking a sip of his tea as well, hot and fresh like he loved it to be.

"How are you feeling, young one?" Seam asked as he looked at the dark prince, who tilted his head a bit at the question. "Uhm…I think I feel better compared to the last time I was awake…why do you want to know?" he replied truthfully, curious about what he was going to hear about the whole situation. "I wanted to know whether it is safe for you to go or not, but you seem to have regained a lot of strength again, so I´d say that it´s not to worry about…"

"What do you mean, 'to go'?" Kris asked with impatience, making the shopkeeper chuckle before he took another sip of his tea. Ralsei did the same, enjoying the aroma of the hot liquid inside of his cup. "Let me tell you what Jevil has said to me: 'Two halves of the same thing, salvation and joy are going to bring. To find them they wandered alone the land, until united and going hand in hand. The moment they see that they are one, will be when over darkness they have won'," Seam spoke, with the fluffy prince being careful not to miss out on a single word while trying his best to make sense of it.

"Jevil has always been one to speak in a strange way, hasn´t he…so what now, Seam?" Ralsei asked after he took a last sip of his tea. "I told you that there was a third way to cure the curse…and though you wouldn´t think of it as destructive, it is the one thing that can destroy the darkness inside of you. You now know everything you need to know, so I´ll send you on your way…maybe you two should go somewhere you both enjoy. I for myself will celebrate with Jevil once he is back…ha ha ha, it´s so relieving to see him being sane again! Thank you, you two," Seam answered, and Ralsei was able to hear the joy in the old shopkeeper´s voice, something that made him beyond happy.

Holding the cup in one hand, he pulled the blanket off his body and slowly sat up, getting out of the comfortable bed afterwards. He handed his empty cup to Seam and stretched himself while yawning once the shopkeeper had taken it out of his hand, feeling incredibly refreshed after having slept and drunken the tea. Kris stepped next to him and handed him his hat with a slight smile, though there was also a look of worry and…something else in his red shining eyes.

"Alright then, thank you, Seam. Send Jevil our regards once he gets back, and let us celebrate this moment together some day," Kris said as Ralsei took the hat and put it onto his head again, shrouding his body in shadows. The two of them walked out of the room, which Ralsei found to be connected to the main room where Seam sold his findings. Ralsei looked at the shopkeeper again, who stored the cups and can away with a smile on his face, before looking at the two of them with a happy expression.

"Thank you, Seam…I don´t know what we would do without you…" Ralsei raised his voice, making Seam shake his head, though still with a genuine smile. "You aren´t out of the woods yet, my friend, though I think your companion will be able to help you out of it. Until we meet again, and thank you, again," Seam replied, and after waving him a goodbye, the two of them stepped out of the shop, just like they had done two days ago, though Ralsei felt less anxious this time around. "That reminds me…where´s Susie?" the dark prince wondered.

"Oh, she should be over at Card Castle and probably told Lancer about everything. I could imagine that Jevil is going to tell her about what happened over here, if she doesn´t beat him up beforehand that is," the Lightner replied, causing Ralsei to chuckle at the imagination. Susie was her own form of entertainment at times, he had to admit. "So are we going there as well to pick her up?" he wanted to know, but Kris shook his head. "I thought about curing your curse first, Ralsei," his friend told him, causing Ralsei to tilt his head in curiosity.

"What I am saying, Ralsei, is that I believe to know what both Jevil and Seam meant. Come, let´s go to your castle."


	9. Home Together, Again

Everything was different from the last time he had walked back to Castle Town together with Kris. He didn´t feel pain anymore, he didn´t feel as if in danger because of his condition, he actually felt really happy. Now that he thought of it, one thing was the same: Kris being with him was what gave him hope, he enjoyed the presence of his friend thoroughly, one could say that he was blooming in it like flowers in the shine of the sun. It felt as if all worries had been lifted off him, he walked through the fields with what seemed to be reduced gravity, each step as light and jauntily as if there was nothing weighing him down.

Ralsei still didn´t know what the solution to the riddle was, the solution as to what was able to cure him from the curse. He decided not to give it too much thought, as Kris seemingly knew what had to be done. And it was even better that they were going back to his castle, because that meant that he was going to be able to brew the special potion he had designated as a gift to his friend, one that was bound to make the Lightner happy beyond comparison. He couldn´t remember the last time it had been made for someone, because of how powerful and life-changing the effect would be…but he knew that within Kris he had found a person worthy of this potion.

How happy he felt, and yet so excited…once the curse was gone, he was going to be able to finally make an advance on Kris, to try and get closer to him, to hopefully win the heart of the human. It was what he hoped to achieve, to never be alone again, to finally have someone by his side that valued him for exactly what he was, for nothing more and nothing less. To be able to genuinely hold him, to truly experience what it was like to love and be loved at the same time…

"Ralsei? Are you afraid of something?" the voice of his friend suddenly ripped him out of his thoughts. As he looked over to him, he suddenly realized that he had been clinging himself to Kris´ arm for…how long exactly? He didn´t know, but the fact that he had done so sent more heat to his face than being hit by a fireball could ever achieve. He hastily let go of the arm and brought a bit of distance between him and Kris, the levels of heat he felt on his face rising with every second.

"U-uhm, I-I´m s-sorry, Kris…I…I guess I am afraid, what if your solution is incorrect?" he tried to come up with something reasonable, not that he didn´t trust Kris, because he knew that his friend´s mind was as sharp as Susie´s axe when it came to puzzles and riddles. "I understand your worries, Ralsei, but it makes sense the way I think about it, it all lines up…I am convinced that this is the third way to save you," Kris replied with a warm and caring smile, and the gentle shine in his eyes threatened to melt Ralsei on the spot, forcing him to look on the ground in order to hopefully let his blush fade away.

"W-well…what do you think is the solution anyways? You haven´t told me yet…" the dark prince asked as he kept facing the ground, still curious about what his salvation was going to be. He heard Kris chuckling next to him, relatively quiet but still audible. "Well…do you trust me, Ralsei?" he asked back, causing Ralsei to look at him with a questioning expression. Why would he ask him a question like this? "Uhm…I do trust you, but what has it to do with all of this?"

"If you do trust me, then just come along with me, and don´t worry about it. You will see for yourself soon enough," Kris said with a smile, looking ahead again and thereby ending the conversation. Ralsei was confused, excited and nervous at the same time, but ultimately decided that it was best to trust his friend, given that he himself wasn´t able to think of anything that could stop the curse. Walking along in silence, the two of them wandered through the fields like they always did, with Ralsei even being calm enough to start humming a tune of which he thought could fit to the area, the field.

As they walked, they passed by a tree which Ralsei quickly spotted something on, something that he wasn´t able to resist. Once they had reached the tree, he quickly walked up to it and stretched his hands out, trying to grab two Dark Candies that were hanging relatively low on the tree. Unfortunately for him, they were just out of reach for him when he tried to jump for them, sadly leaving him unable to retrieve the sweets. That was, until he was suddenly grabbed from behind and lifted in the air, just high enough to instinctively grab the two candies.

It was only then that he realized that someone had helped him, causing him to look down behind him in order to see who had suddenly grabbed him. Kris smiled at him as their gazes met, again letting a high amount of heat shoot into Ralsei´s face. His friend slowly put him onto the ground again, and walked in front of Ralsei, who was frozen in shock and surprise at the sudden unrequested help. "Well, next time you could just ask for me to help you, you know," he said with an amused smile, quickly stretching a hand out and gently scratching the dark prince behind his right ear.

Ralsei failed to comprehend what was happening to him in this very moment. Kris suddenly helping him like that, and then the sudden scratches he gave him…he was unable to say or do anything, just stand there and take the kindness of Kris. "Ha ha…you look so flustered and adorable. Say, is my assumption that you picked one of those candies for me correct?" his friend asked, slowly breaking Ralsei out of his frozen state and setting things in his mind in motion again. "Y-y-y-y-yes…" was the only thing he found himself able to reply, making Kris take one candy out of Ralsei´s hands with his free hand while continuing to scratch him behind his ear.

"How sweet of you! Thank you, Ralsei, I´ll be sure to enjoy it. Come, your castle isn´t far from here," Kris said with a smile, stopping the scratching and slowly beginning to walk towards Castle Town again, looking back every few steps, probably to check on whether Ralsei had gained control over his movements again or not. What had just happened? He didn´t know, but he knew that it had to have been one of the best moments of his life. Did Kris possibly love him as well? Or was he just being as kind as he always was? Ralsei didn´t know, his heart just kept on racing and his head spinning…

"Are you coming, Ralsei? Or do you want to eat the candies here?" the voice of his friend finally ripped him out of his thoughts, enabling him to think straight again. "Uhm…don´t worry, I´m on my way! We can eat them while walking just as fine," he found himself able to say as his legs slowly came into motion again, taking him forward into the direction of his beacon of light in life. Once moving, he quickly picked up his pace to catch up with Kris, who had been walking at a slow pace until now. As he reached his friend, Kris returned to his normal walking speed, with Ralsei doing the same.

He saw that the human had already started eating the sweet, so the dark prince took a small bite out of his candy as well. It was soft and with a tasty filling underneath the outer layer, tasting of chocolate, the best he ever had in his life. Dark Candy truly was a miraculous treat, each time he ate one it was a sensation. This one seemed to taste even better than the ones prior…could it be because of Kris´ presence? He didn´t give it much thought, and instead ate the candy with small bites while walking next to his friend, who ate his candy in silence as well.

Ralsei had to admit that he would have liked to talk to Kris about anything, just to keep a conversation going and perhaps find out about what his friend thought about him. No topic came to his mind, however, and so he eventually settled with walking next to Kris and enjoying his presence. Humming his lullaby to distract himself of things that were on his mind, specifically how to get closer to Kris, the two of them walked until Castle Town came into sight. Passing by the abandoned houses, Ralsei and Kris finally arrived at their destination. The prince pushed the door of his home open, gesturing Kris to step in ahead of him before doing so himself, closing the door afterwards.

He realized how dark it was without the candles being lit, but he also came to the realization that the candles were burnt down as he tried to ignite them with his magic…had he forgotten to extinguish them before he had left the castle? Not that this was going to help him now, he needed a different solution. "Uhm, Ralsei? Aren´t you going to light the way?" Kris asked in the darkness, and so Ralsei held his hand out and made a small sphere of light appear in it, illuminating the immediate area around him.

"It would appear that the candles have burnt down during our absence, I will have to replace them soon. For now, this should do the trick just fine," he replied as he walked into the direction of his friend, who patiently waited near him. Ralsei took the lead as the two of them started walking through the otherwise deserted castle, their footsteps echoing through the large and empty halls. They began to climb up a large set of stairs, taking them to the interior of the castle where Ralsei lived his life. The two of them walked in silence and soon reached the end of the stairs, making Ralsei turn right and lead them towards his room, where he had spent most of his life waiting for the prophecy to come true…

Looking to his left, he was able to see the interior garden through windows in the wall, with the three creations made by him waited for him to come by and retrieve the formula to make the special potion…as well as the empty fourth location, which he wanted to create a portrait of him and Kris in, together and in love. He felt something else inside of him as well: his magic energy was depleting. Even though the curse had been stopped in its tracks for the time being, its negative effects on his magic capabilities were still there, though he didn´t feel pain at the usage of his powers anymore, most likely thanks to the curse being inactive.

He stopped the magic in his hand and let the orb of light disappear, as he found the small amount of light that came through the windows to be just enough for him to be able to see. He looked back and took Kris by his hand, blushing at the touch…he was glad that it was too dark for Kris to see him blushing like that. "I hope you don´t mind, Kris, but I want to save my energy…the potion sustaining it has run out, and I feel how quickly my energy is drained by my magic," he explained to the silhouette of the Lightner.

"I don´t mind, it´s fine. I just want you to be comfortable," Kris replied, a new tone accompanying his voice…Ralsei wasn´t able to think of what it was, however, and so he simply went towards his room with his friend by his hand. His heart started beating at a faster pace as he realized that now that they were alone again, he was finally able to try and get closer to Kris and hopefully win his heart. Finally reaching his room at the end of the hallway, he opened the door to it with his spare hand and walked inside together with Kris, closing the door again once they both stood inside of his comfortable bedroom.

"Wait here, I´ll quickly grab some candles from the closet and light them up, so that we are able to see better," he said, letting go of Kris´ hand and walking over to the closet, opening the door and rummaging through the darkness until he finally felt one of the things he was looking for. He took a candle and put it down next to him, searching through the closet again to hopefully find a box of matches. His hand eventually landed on what he was searching, enabling him to grab the box and take a match out of it, carefully igniting it after backing away from the closet a bit so that he wasn´t going to set it on fire by accident.

With a swift motion, the match caught fire as he used it on the box, making him see in the immediate area around him. He quickly spotted the candle on the floor and lit it on fire after taking it into his hand, blowing the flame on the match out once the candle was burning. Thanks to him being able to see more now, he was quickly able to get his hand on more candles. "Kris? Could you please come over and help me? We should get to replacing the candles in here," Ralsei asked into the direction where his friend had to be. He heard some shuffling before Kris slowly stepped into his field of view, waiting in front of him with an eager look on his face.

The dark prince ignited another candle with the already burning one and handed it to Kris, pointing at the various spots the candles were placed on at the wall. "I´ll ignite the candles here and you can go and put them where they are supposed to go, alright?" he instructed his friend, who smiled at him and got into motion again. "Sure thing, Ralsei, let´s light it up in here…even though there already is the brightest source of light in this room," Kris replied as he went to the furthest spot for a candle and placed his lit one on it. Ralsei tilted his head in confusion as Kris came walking back to him, unsure about what the human had meant with his statement. "Ha ha…you will understand soon enough," Kris said with a chuckle as he took the next candle that Ralsei had lit by then.

Over time Ralsei´s room was painted into a warm flickering light thanks to the candles, making the dark prince feel even more at home than before. Was this maybe an opportunity to try and advance towards Kris and see what his friend thought of him? As he closed the closet and turned around to speak to Kris, he quickly discovered that the Lightner had already opened the door of his room again, seemingly waiting for him. "Would you care to go into the garden with me again? I really like it there," he asked the fluffy prince with an almost begging look in his eyes, something Ralsei wasn´t quite able to make sense of…but he certainly was not going to deny a request like this.

He also realized that this opened up a door for a perfect opportunity to get what he needed for the special potion, and thereby to make an ultimate attempt at showing Kris what he really meant to the dark prince. "S-sure, whatever makes you happy," he replied with glee, making slight jumps as he was on his way to his friend. He wanted to step out of his room to lead the way again when he suddenly felt his hat being lifted off his head. "I don´t think that you need to wear this in your castle…and I think you look better without being obscured by your hat´s shadow anyways," Kris said with a warm smile before putting the hat down onto Ralsei´s bed.

He blushed at the sudden action Kris had undertaken, but he was not going to complain about it. His friend stepped back towards him again and took his hand, seemingly eager to get to the garden as quickly as possible. His blush got severely worse at the touch again, and this time he was certain that Kris was able to see it, worsening the blush even more. He didn´t have it in him to look towards his friend to see a reaction, he was too embarrassed at how easily he was flustered. Without another word, he slowly stepped out of his room with Kris by his hand, closing the door once they were outside and beginning to walk through the hallways again.

He ran calculations through his head, trying to determine if he was going to be able to put enough magic energy into making the potion for Kris. He certainly hoped so, because if he was to faint because of it, there was no guarantee that he would wake up soon enough for the darkness inside of his heart to be stopped. Kris remained silent as their steps echoed through the castle once again, leaving him to his own thoughts, though it was for the better if he was going to make the potion. Based on his experiences with using his magic, he figured that he was able to make the potion, as long as he didn´t have to use much more of it for other things.

They finally reached the stairs that took them down towards the garden, slowly taking one step at a time as to not miss one by accident and fall down the remainder of it. Once they had reached the end of the stairs, Ralsei turned right and opened the door leading to the interior garden, stepping out of the hallway into the area he put a lot of work into before his friends had fallen down. "This garden really is beautiful…" he heard next to him, making him realize that he was still holding Kris´ hand. He quickly pulled his hand towards him in embarrassment and walked over to the fountain in the middle of the garden, looking up towards the statue representing him.

"Forgive me for asking, but why exactly is it a statue of you? Couldn´t it have been something else? Not that I mind it, I am just curious," Kris asked next to him, making him turn his head towards his friend, who was still facing the statue. "Uhm…well, it is the same reason as for why the training dummies outside the town look like me: I had nothing else to model anything after. If you want to see it changed, I could make one modelled after you if you want to," he said with a smile, but then internally slapped himself as he realised what he let slip out of his mouth.

"Ha ha, that´s sweet of you, Ralsei, but I doubt that I deserve to have a place like that as a statue on my own," Kris replied laughing, though it seemed as if there was a hidden meaning in his words…Ralsei felt that there was more to it, but he couldn´t put his finger on it. His thoughts returned to the statue and its hidden secret, the secret to make Kris happy and fulfil his wish that Ralsei had learnt about a few days ago. He focused on the heart on the statue, making his soul radiate with the magic energy that made him the being he was. "R-Ralsei? What are you doing?" he heard his friend ask in concern; it seemed as if Kris had felt the magic that radiated from him, resonating with the statue.

The heart on the statue began to glow in a white light, and the black heart on Ralsei´s robe started to do so as well. The magic connection caused him to slowly ascend into the air, being drawn towards the statue…he felt it all: Kris´ worries, the magic infused into the statue resonating with his presence, his fast beating heart at the thought of what was to come, and also the struggles of his magic as it pushed past the darkness in his heart and soul to radiate from his body. He finally was stopped right in front of the statue, the white glowing heart being on the same level as the one on his robe. He stretched his hand out towards the statue´s heart, and put his hand through it as the magic connection had made him able to pass through the heart, which in reality was a magic barrier, meant to keep the secret inside secure.

He heard Kris gasp as Ralsei´s hand moved through the barrier, but he stayed focused on the goal before him. Closing his eyes, he carefully searched inside of the statue, which was partially hollow inside to store two certain things. His fingers touched the scroll that he was looking for, making him reach forward a bit more to grab it and pull it out of the statue. He put the scroll into his other hand before reaching into the statue again, searching the hollow area once more for the special ingredient that he was going to need for his gift. He eventually felt the desired object touch his hands, allowing him to take it into it before pulling his hand out again. Once his hand was free again, the magic dispelled and made him slowly descend back towards Kris, who still stood next to the fountain, mouth wide agape.

"Wh-what happened?" he demanded to know, but Ralsei just gave him a reassuring smile, seemingly calming the human somewhat. "That statue had another purpose as well, as you could see. It kept these two things save from being destroyed or anything similar," the fluffy prince explained to his friend as the white glow on both his robe´s heart as well as the one on the statue disappeared again, leaving them as if nothing had happened. Kris gaze redirected towards his hands, in which he held the scroll and a small golden flask.

"What are those anyways? And why did you decide to take them out of there now of all times?" his friend kept asking, making Ralsei think about what he was going to say to reassure him of everything being alright. "This scroll contains a formula to make something really special, a potion to be precise. It is unlike any other potion you may have read about a few days ago, because the formula was passed down for generations in my family in secrecy. It has a really unique and potentially dangerous effect if consumed by the wrong people, hence why it would only be brewed on rare occasions and kept secret. This is the formula for…the Power Potion!" he proudly explained, and he was able to see that he had caught Kris´ interest with his story.

"I see…and what does this potion do, and what do you need that golden flask for?" Kris asked further, putting Ralsei into a bit of a tight spot as he didn´t want to give away what it was until the moment the potion would be standing in front of Kris, where Ralsei could make a move onto him. "I will tell you when the time is right, don´t worry about it. As for the flask, it contains a special ingredient that is needed for the potion, otherwise we won´t be able to create it," he replied, hoping to at least satisfy his friend with his answer to some extent.

"Wait…do you want to make that potion now, is that your intention? Can´t we stay here and enjoy the garden just a bit longer?" Kris asked, the question surprising Ralsei as he hadn´t expected the Lightner to like the garden that much. It was a request we wouldn´t deny, however, and so he smiled at Kris with all the warmth he felt inside of him. "If that is your wish, then we can make the potion a bit later. And afterwards we can take care of the curse I´d say, though it depends on how long it´ll take for you to do what needs to be done to banish the darkness," the dark prince replied, hoping that his plan of becoming more than a friend to Kris was going to be a success.

"I don´t think that it´ll take long, you´ll see about that. Are you sure about the potion, though? You already are quite limited in the use of your magic after all…" the Lightner brought up, but Ralsei was confident that he was going to be able to make the potion for Kris without passing out or anything. He was too determined to be stopped now…how fitting it was, given the secret ingredient. He stepped towards the area the image of the Fun Gang had been created by him, looking at the individual people represented. Lancer, the chaotic new king who was still a kid, but had a good heart unlike his father. Susie, the mean hero who at first was unlike any hero, but had eventually warmed up to it…thanks to Lancer. Himself, the supportive though probably naïve dark prince of the kingdom, always supporting a good cause. And of course Kris, the hero and bright beacon of hope, who had led the Fun Gang towards freeing the Darkners off the King´s clutches and banish the second fountain.

"I have enough energy left to make that potion, it is something I won´t back away from. Would you like to assist me in making the potion again, just like a few days ago?" the dark prince replied, hoping to share the magical moment with Kris. He was nervous about the procedures that were to come, but he was also looking forward to them with anticipation. "Well, I certainly won´t let you be alone while you make a potion like that. I´ll be there with you, and it´s up to you when we start," Kris answered his question…since when was he standing next to Ralsei and had his arm wrapped around him? His face shot full with heat at the realisation, but he didn´t want to pull away either…and yet he didn´t know if it was just Kris being kind or his friend showing affection towards him…

"Ha ha…you are hopelessly adorable when you´re blushing like this, do you know that?" Kris whispered after a few seconds with a chuckle, causing Ralsei to blush even more. "K-Kris…I-I´m sorry for blushing like this the entire time, but I´m not used to being shown appreciation and these kind gestures…that´s why I´m always flustered when you do these nice things for me…"he truthfully replied, his face feeling hot enough to evaporate any water it would have come in contact with. Kris remained silent for some time, not moving at all…did he say something wrong? "Should…should I stop it, then?" he eventually asked, causing Ralsei´s heart to stop for a short moment as he heard the sad underlying tone in his voice.

"N-no! I…I mean…I really like these gestures, it feels nice to be appreciated like this; it´s just that I´m not used to it…you can keep it up if you wish to, I wouldn´t mind," he hastily explained, hoping to swing Kris´ mood around again. How foolish he had been with his comments, now Kris was sad because of him. He was, however, surprised when Kris turned around to face him and put his other arm around him as well, hugging him with seemingly even more sincerity than before. "Then I will keep these little things up, my prince…" he whispered into Ralsei´s ear, causing him to blush again…but he didn´t mind, and instead hugged his friend back.

The only sound to be heard in the garden was that of the water pouring into the pool of the fountain, everything else was quiet as Kris and Ralsei stood there, hugging each other next to the flowers the dark prince had carefully planted to create an image…he was careful not to let go of the things he held in his hands, because without either of them his plan wouldn´t come to fruition. How much time had passed by now? He couldn´t tell, but it didn´t really matter to him, not as long as he was able to be with Kris.

"Shall we make your potion now, Ralsei? The sooner we can cure you, the better," Kris brought up after what seemed like an eternity. Ralsei realised how long they had been standing in the garden like this, and even though he would have loved to be this close to Kris for longer, he knew that time was still working against him. "You are right…let us go into the basement and create the Power Potion," he replied and slowly ended the hug with Kris, who took his arms away from the fluffy prince as well. The two of them walked towards the door bringing them back into the castle again, with Kris going in after Ralsei to close the door after them, given how Ralsei had his hands full.

"So…we will go back to my room first and get more candles, I assume that the candles down in the chamber have burnt out as well. I hope that you can follow me while I lead the way," the dark prince said once Kris had closed the door, though instead of answering, he simply put an arm around Ralsei. Again he felt how badly he was beginning to blush, and again he felt flustered at the touch, but he slowly moved forward and began climbing up the stairs, slowly taking one step at a time, Kris being right next to him and keeping up with him.

Once they had finally climbed the stair to the top, the two of them picked up their pace for a bit and walked through the castle like they would walk during their adventures, their steps echoing as they slowly began to approach Ralsei´s room once more. No word was spoken as the two of them walked through the castle; it seemed as if Kris was tensed up as well about something…probably because the fluffy prince still had to be freed of the curse inside of him. Ralsei on the other hand was nervous because the moment of truth was coming closer with each step he took…once he started making the potion, there wouldn´t be a way for him to back away from his plan. He was going to have to make his move on Kris then.

His room came into view, and with each step Ralsei´s heart seemed to be beating just a tiny bit quicker…the moment was coming closer and closer. "Would you please open the door, Kris? We are right in front of my room," he asked his silent friend, who opened the door to the room at his request, letting a warm light fall into the otherwise dark corridor. Ralsei still had his hands full with the scroll and the golden flask, so he instead looked at Kris, who seemed to eagerly be awaiting his next instructions. "If you don´t mind, Kris…could you take six candles out of the closet, and light one of them so we can see something on the way down?" he asked the human, who only smiled at him before silently walking over to the closet and taking the candles out, igniting one of them using the already lit candles afterwards.

"Thank you Kris…but why are you so quiet? You´re kind of making me nervous with that," Ralsei asked once Kris stood in front of him again, the candles in hand. He smiled again before answering and finally breaking his silence again. "I´m sorry, I´m just excited because of what is to come, no need to be worried because of it," his friend explained to him, making Ralsei´s worries disappear…or at least his worries regarding Kris being okay.

"Alright, then I´m glad. Come, Kris, let us go into the basement…it is time to brew a potion!"


	10. The Power Potion

Kris and Ralsei walked through the corridors side by side, the lit candle in Kris´ hand lighting the way for them to be able to see. Ralsei still would have been able to see the way without the additional light, but this made it easier for his friend to navigate through the castle as well. In silence the two of them wandered, with the dark prince thinking about the recent and future events…a chaotic adventure was behind them, and now the conclusion to everything drew near, coming closer with each step they took towards the chamber…Kris stopped as they reached the door taking them down to the brewing chamber, making Ralsei stop as well as he had failed to notice where they were already. "I should get a grip…it will all be okay…I hope. With these recent actions of him…I think he might love me as well, I hope…"

Kris opened the door with the stairs behind it, a large dark walk into what looked like impenetrable darkness. Taking a deep breath, the goat monster walked through the door after Kris entered the corridor, excitement rushing through him. Each step he took was one more towards the moment of truth, the moment of clarity…the moment his happiness would depend on. He felt how his heart was racing in his chest, and quite similarly did his soul pulse with energy in the same rhythm as his heart…he was undeniably nervous and excited as he and Kris walked deeper and deeper into the darkness, until the two finally reached the end of the stairs.

Ralsei waited by the stairs as Kris began to put the candles into their respective spots on the wall, igniting them with his lit one once he had done so. Placing his last candle on the last empty spot, the chamber was touched into a cosy and warm orange light, shrouding it into a sense of mystery and the feeling to be at home…Ralsei stored this feeling inside of his heart, next to his love for Kris, which he still had to hope for being mutual. Being down here like this was a favourite activity of him, to be able to brew potions and experience magic in a different form than just spells…after his bedroom and the garden, this was his favourite place.

"Well then, Ralsei…we should make preparations for making that potion you want to brew. What ingredients do we need?" Kris broke the silence between them as he stepped closer to the dark prince again, excitement and anticipation glimmering in the shining red eyes of his beloved Lightner. "I don´t know to be honest, I will have to look in the scroll first…it has been a very long time since this potion has been created by anyone," he had to admit as he stepped forward and placed the golden flask he carried with him onto a free space on the nearest shelf, so that he was able to properly read through the procedure.

He opened the piece of paper to read through the text written a long time ago, searching the individual things to be put into the cauldron in a specific order, also careful to take note of when the special ingredient was to be mixed in. He found the procedure to be almost similar to another potion…a potion that would apply a strong poison to the one drinking it, curable only by the strongest healing spells in combination with a special antidote. It seemed as if this was a way to punish those who were to try and create the potion themselves, as the secret ingredient had always been added in the most secret way…by mixing it into the ladle beforehand, thus making sure that it wouldn´t be seen when being added. Without the secret ingredient, the potion became poison…Ralsei made sure to remember that very well, as the last thing he wanted to do was to poison his love…and with how weak he was, there would be no way for him to effectively cure him.

"Are you ready, Kris? I will tell you what we need and you could go and get it from the storage room, if that is fine with you," the fluffy prince suggested after he had read through the instructions. Kris tilted his head a bit and put on a slightly curious look, as if he wanted to know something. "That we can do, Ralsei, but wouldn´t it be quicker if we both checked on what ingredients we need and collect them together?" his friend wanted to know, and he knew that the human was right with what he said. "That´s true, but I don´t want you to know of the potion´s effect beforehand…it´d ruin the surprise and experience, I believe," he explained as he put up the best smile he could muster while rejecting his friend from knowing what was written in the scroll.

"I think I understand. You want to surprise me with this potion, and it must be really special if we have this much of a build-up…I really am curious about what it will be in the end. Alright, we will do things your way, then. What do we need?" Kris replied with a warm smile; enthusiasm, excitement and curiosity mixed into his red gems of eyes. Ralsei had trouble not to get lost in them again, too entrancing was the deep red that represented the determination and other good qualities of Kris. He gathered his willpower to not fall into a trance, and looked back into the scroll to read through the ingredients again, naming a few before Kris stormed off into the storage room with a candle in hand to be able to see what he was looking for.

He soon returned with the listed ingredients under his arms and in his free hand, walking over to the cauldrons to put them on the ground for the time being. Ralsei took the scroll into one hand and walked over to him to help him with the ingredients, as his friend seemed to have trouble with reliably putting them onto the ground with all of his hands and arms stuffed. The dark prince took the ingredients away from his arms one by one, until Kris was able to safely put the rest of them onto the ground by himself. The human looked a bit flustered that he had needed help for a task as simple as that, but Ralsei just found it adorable and heartwarming that he didn´t want to bother him despite having more than just his hands full.

"Th-thank you…what else do we need?" Kris said as he put the rest of the ingredients next to the cauldron, quickly making his way to the storage room again afterwards, though Ralsei could have sworn that he had seen a blush on his friend´s face. "Hm, let me look…" he replied as he took a look at the old paper again, listing off ingredients which Kris soon brought out of the storage, this time with less things in his hands and arms, so that he was able to properly put them onto the ground by himself. After one more run into the storage room, every ingredient necessary was gathered in front of the cauldron, which meant that they were almost ready to get started.

"Thank you so much, Kris! Now we just need to fill the cauldron with water and then we are good to go," the dark prince said with glee, placing the scroll next to the golden flask on the shelf to be able to lift the heavy object together with his friend. He stood on one side of it while Kris got in position on the opposing one, and after a short countdown by Ralsei they lifted the cauldron off the hook above the fireplace, with the dark prince navigating them towards the gutter in the floor. The cauldron was still filled with the remains of the last potion he had made, meaning that they had to pour them out before a new potion was to be made inside of it.

With their combined efforts, they emptied the content of the metallic object into the gutter, catching their breath afterwards before carrying it towards the stream of water that flowed steadily at the side of the chamber. Placing it into the stream, the two of them waited until enough water was inside of the cauldron, taking it out of the water again with great effort and slowly carrying it back towards the fireplace again. Once they arrived there with the cauldron in hand, they took a short moment before lifting it up higher in synchronization, hanging it back onto the hook above where the firewood was supposed to be if it hadn´t burnt down after the last potion had been made there.

"Phew…that´s it, I just need to get some firewood and then we can start," Ralsei said between deep breaths, admittedly a bit exhausted after carrying a heavy object like a filled cauldron. Looking over at Kris, he noticed his friend shaking his head at his statement, to which Ralsei tilted his head a bit in confusion. "Hm? Do you think I´ve forgotten something?" he asked his friend, who was now nodding at his question. The dark prince thought about things again, but he couldn´t conclude what the Lightner had thought about. "What about the protection against the heat once we have to fill the potion into a flask?" Kris asked, making Ralsei realize that he hadn´t told him about the procedure yet. "Under normal circumstances you would be right, but the Power Potion is different…I will cast a spell on it after we have thrown a flask into it, and it will all transfer and concentrate into it. It is that way to prevent others who are not intended to have the potion from being able to consume it while it is still effective," he explained to his friend.

"Ah, I see…will you be able to reliably do so? You are going to use a lot of magic for the potion after all, correct?" Kris asked him, worry and concern visible in his eyes. It was something the fluffy prince wasn´t sure of himself, as he didn´t know how much energy the spell was going to cost…he hadn´t ever used it himself yet, he didn´t even know how to perform it. Thankfully the instructions were on the scroll as well, he just hadn´t read through them yet. "I think that I´ll be fine, Kris. I won´t give in to things now, not after all we´ve been through!" he firmly said with determination, ready to take the steps necessary to win a spot in Kris heart…a very special one, just like the Lightner had one in Ralsei´s.

"Such determination…I like to see that in you, Ralsei. Alright, how do we proceed from here on?" his friend asked, to which Ralsei walked into the storage room himself, where he collected a few logs to be used as firewood. Walking back outside, he placed them under the cauldron and grabbed the flint and stone which were deposited on a shelf, handing them over to Kris afterwards. "I will put the needed magic essence into the water, while you go ahead and ignite the firewood, is that okay with you?" the dark prince suggested, a bit scared to view the state of his soul if he had to be honest with himself.

"Sure, just be careful with yourself…only use as much magic as you ultimately have to…" Kris pleaded as he knelt next to the logs and began trying his luck with the flint and stone, while Ralsei took a deep breath and released his soul from his body, not looking at it at first to spare himself the view. His curiosity got the better of him in the end though, and so he looked at the hovering essence of him above the cauldron. He was shocked, albeit not exactly surprised, to see his soul in a state as horrible as it was in. It was almost entirely black by now, with only a few white spots remaining, struggling to stay clear of the corruption.

He gulped as he saw how bad it had become, with this state telling him that he only had a few hours left…the darkness taking him over during the battle with Jevil had rushed the progress significantly, reducing the time-frame of four days he had at the start to maybe three at best. And those three days were almost up...he and Kris were going to have to hurry if they wanted to reach a happy ending, so he quickly focused to release the magic energy inside of his soul, ta process which only happened slowly he found out. The magic was crawling out of the few non-corrupted parts of his soul, the whole procedure taking several minutes as there were only a few pure spots left, the rest covered up in darkness and corruption.

He slowly felt himself getting tired and drained as more and more energy descended into the water, until he finally felt that he had added enough of his energy into it. He was heavily exhausted as a result, with his legs being quite shaky and his vision slightly blurry…he knew that he was going to be able to transfer the Power Potion into the flask with his remaining energy, but he wasn´t sure whether it was going to knock him out or not…and if it didn´t, then he was surely going to be tired out beyond belief, so he hoped that he was still going to be able to banish the darkness from him with Kris after they made the potion.

A gasp to his left snapped him out of his thoughts and made him look towards Kris, who had managed to ignite the firewood by the time Ralsei was done with adding his magic to the water. His friend wasn´t looking at him however, but rather his soul which was still hovering above the cauldron…without a doubt had he seen the extent of the darkness they were up against. "Ralsei…I think we should get you cured first," Kris eventually said, his voice shaking with fear. It tore Ralsei´s heart apart to see his friend that way, but he wanted to make this potion and show how much he cared about them at all costs.

"N-no, I think we have enough time remaining…I want to make the potion first, that is my priority right now," he explained to his friend, but he knew that it would only raise more questions inside of Kris….and he returned the exact question that Ralsei had hoped to be able to avoid. "Why are you focusing on that potion so much, Ralsei?" his friend wanted to know, and now he was backed into a corner more than he felt comfortable with. He couldn´t just tell him the truth…or could he? He didn´t have to tell him his true intentions, but could still tell him the truth nonetheless at the same time. "Because I want to repay you for what you have done for me, with something really unique and special," he truthfully replied, though the entire truth went deeper than that. Kris nodded at the answer though, so it seemed like he didn´t suspect more behind it.

"Okay, but please promise me that we will stop immediately if you feel like it is getting worse, alright?" Kris demanded of him, and Ralsei knew that his friend cared too much about him to just keep on going on like he was used to. "I promise, Kris. I´m positive that we´ll make it through though," he replied, making Kris let out a sigh of relief. The sound of boiling water next to them caught their attention, it seemed that the water was ready for the ingredients now. Ralsei reminded himself of the steps and their order, taking one of the herbs on the ground and holding them above the water. "Kris, could you turn the hourglass over, please?" he requested his friend, who quickly stepped over to the wall and did as he was told to.

The dark prince threw the herb into the water at the same time, gesturing Kris to come back to the cauldron again afterwards. "Okay, we´ll do it like last time: I tell you what to add when, and you do so, okay? Meanwhile I´ll prepare to add the most important ingredient, if that is okay with you," he suggested once Kris stood next to the cauldron again. Kris just smiled at him and scratched the fur on his head for a second before turning over to the ingredients, and Ralsei was glad about it because it meant that his friend didn´t get to see the blush that he felt hot on his face.

"A-alright…throw in those herbs on your left when the sand passes the second mark, but don´t stir it yet! We need to start with that once the secret ingredient is inside the water," he instructed to Kris as he walked back to the shelf with the golden flask, taking it into his hands and relaxing at the powerful feeling in his hands…he was able to feel it now more than ever, the presence of what was inside of the flask. "After one more mark, you´ll have to pour a few drops from that flask to your right into the water," he instructed Kris as he counted the time in his head, while also walking back towards the cauldron where his friend patiently awaited instructions after adding the content of the clear flask in question.

Ralsei took the ladle hanging next to the cauldron and handed it to Kris, who took it and looked at him with a curious and anticipating look. "Okay, here comes the most important step. Could you please hold the ladle still while I´ll do my best to get the right amount of it on there?" he asked his friend, who in return held out the ladle as requested, to which Ralsei opened the flask. "Would you please tell me what is in there? I feel a powerful presence within that flask, and it kind of feels familiar…" Kris asked him, making the dark prince smile in response.

"I think you will know it when you see it," he replied as he began to tilt the flask, doing so until a shining and bright red liquid started to pour out of the flask. Ralsei filled the ladle until it was about three quarters full, while also noticing Kris standing there with his mouth widely opened. "T-that presence…Ralsei, could that be…Determination?" the human asked, seemingly in disbelief at what he just witnessed. The one asked closed the flask again and quickly put it back onto the shelf, walking back to his friend and carefully taking the ladle out of his hand. "It indeed is, Kris. This extracted Determination was given to my ancestors by an old and powerful Lightner as a sign of good will, along with the formula to make the Power Potion. He told us that…well, I will get to that later, but to answer your question: yes, this is Determination we are putting into that potion," he answered as he remembered the old tale passed down from generation to generation.

"I wonder what a potion could potentially need Determination for, it truly must be something very special…" Kris whispered as he kept looking at Ralsei, who waited for the right time to pour the Determination into the cauldron, checking the hourglass every so often to make sure not to miss the moment. As the sand passed another mark, he quickly put the ladle with the Determination on it into the water, stirring the whole mixture as it began to turn into a colour of bright red, just like the ingredient he had just put in. "On the next mark put that yellow mushroom in, please," he requested Kris as he went through the process in his head again, careful to remember each step in its proper order.

As his friend tossed the requested ingredient into the mixture, it changed its colour from red to yellow, and then back to red again, alternating between the two colours at a fast pace. Ralsei kept on stirring as he saw that everything went according to plan, he already felt immense potential within the potion thanks to the Determination, and said ingredient also had special effects on the other ingredients that were to follow: the yellow mushroom, brought down originally by a sorcerer of Justice. And many more that were brought by Lightners ages ago, all containing a special trait that would show if exposed to Determination.

"After one more mark, could you please add a few drops of the purple liquid inside of that bottle next to me?" he asked Kris, who quickly grabbed the item in question and opened it, taking a sniff to seemingly determine what was inside of it. "Mmh, grape juice?" his friend asked with a smile as he poured a few drops into the soon-to-be potion after the sand in the hourglass had passed one more mark. "Yeah, the grapes were brought by a nice and young sorcerer who always got through situations, no matter the odds…they were really perseverant," Ralsei answered as he kept stirring, the colour of purple beginning to appear as well as the potion now changed colour between the three that were present by now.

"Okay, up next would be that light blue powder over there, be careful not to touch your eyes afterwards though! That´s a special pepper brought by yet another Lightner, one who was the most patient of visitors ever seen in this world. No matter what they were faced with, their Patience in the end allowed them to make things go well. Add in a handful after the next mark, okay?" he explained and instructed to his friend, who by now looked very interested in the lore behind all of the ingredients they were adding right now. "That´s all so fascinating, I didn´t even know that these things had their origins up in my world! And I can also feel different things coming from the potion…are they linked to the Lightners that brought them here in the first place?" Kris asked as he added a handful of the blue powder into the mixture.

"Nicely combined, Kris! The few things we are adding right now have a trait linked to the sorcerer that gave them to us, and with Determination they can be extracted from these things…" Ralsei happily explained as he kept stirring, while the colour of the added ingredient was now also present in the colour-switching liquid inside of the cauldron. "I still can´t think of what potion would need such things, but you have me sitting on hot coals with this…I assume that we need to add these three remaining ingredients?" Kris wanted to know, at which Ralsei nodded.

"Correct, at the next mark we would need these green herbs…the human who brought them was the kindest person to ever set foot into these lands, the tales of them inspired me to strive and hold myself to the standards of Kindness that they had practiced!" the dark prince replied, remembering what he had read about the human with unwavering Kindness. Kris took the herbs and added them into the liquid at the specified time, making the colour of dark green appear between the changes of colour. The power emanating from the potion was extraordinary, Ralsei almost couldn´t believe how much potential was already gathered inside of the cauldron.

"I´m really looking forward to this, Ralsei. I´m curious about what this potion will do, and I also am looking forward to finally ending this adventure by curing you from the darkness…this day could be one of the best in our lives, really," Kris said as they kept looking at the cauldron´s content, changing colour from red to any between light blue, green, yellow and purple within seconds before changing to a different one of the ingredients´ colours. "I am looking forward to what is to come as well, Kris, I really am," the fluffy prince replied with a smile directed at his friend.

"Okay, only two ingredients are missing. Up next we add the orange flowers over here…the person who took them with them as they travelled down here was really brave, facing danger head on as long as they knew that they had a chance of making it through. Brave, but not stupid and reckless, I admire such a quality," he told Kris, who took the flowers and was ready to add them in. Ralsei looked back at the hourglass to watch the sand pass the marks, waiting to tell Kris to throw the flowers into the hot liquid. "Add them now, please," he instructed Kris as the sand passed a certain mark on the glass, and looking back to his friend he saw how the flowers landed in the potion, changing the colour to orange as they sunk and were mixed into the mixture by Ralsei using the ladle.

"I´ll take a guess: the last things to add are these tiny dark blue crystals?" Kris asked as he took the described items into his hand. Their trait was something Ralsei highly valued, as were all the other traits added into the potion…though Kindness and this dark blue one were the most important to him. "Indeed, a person of true Integrity brought them with them when they came down, giving them to us so that we could both use and admire them inside of the cave we used to grow them in. They might seem inconsumable, but they actually melt fairly easily under high temperatures…it might be because Integrity can be quite fragile…" he explained, looking back at the hourglass again afterwards.

"Okay, add them in after the next mark. I´ll keep on stirring this whole thing, and I would like you to grab an empty flask from a shelf and bring it here. I hope you aren´t mad at me commanding you like this…" he instructed Kris, though he also realized how he had taken over the role of a leader now instead of the Lightner. "Don´t worry, Ralsei, it is an interesting change for once, given that I am the one commanding you guys during our adventures," he replied as he threw the crystals into the cauldron, adding the seventh and final colour to the colourful spectacle. He then walked past Ralsei towards the shelf, though not without fluffing his fur on his head for a few seconds with one hand.

Ralsei felt his face getting hot again as he watched Kris walking over to the shelf and grabbing one of the flasks, as well as a cork to seal it with, while he himself almost forgot to stir the potion inside of the cauldron. His friend walked back to him with a warm and caring smile, with curiosity and also amusement visible in his deep red shining eyes at the sight of Ralsei´s blush. "Okay, so how exactly is this going to work now, Ralsei?" the human asked him, to which Ralsei quickly ran over to the scroll on the shelf and took it with him to the cauldron again, continuing to stir the mixture inside. As the sand in the hourglass passed the second to last mark, he took the ladle out again and hung it next to the cauldron, as he didn´t need it anymore.

"Okay Kris, here is how it works: when the sand has run through entirely, you need to let the flask slide out of your hand into the mixture while I will cast a spell to concentrate and transfer the potion into the flask, which should leave the cauldron empty aside from the bottle with the entire potion inside. The only problem might be getting the flask out of it again without burning ourselves…I think I´ll just try and cover my hands with my scarf, it should keep the heat away for a bit," he explained the procedure, to which Kris nodded and took a look at the hourglass as well. One mark remaining.

"I just hope that you have enough energy to endure it, Ralsei…but I trust in you, so let us finish this potion," Kris said with a smile as he watched the hourglass. The dark prince opened the scroll so that he was able to read the spell, and as the last bit of sand had run through, the potion slid out of Kris´ hand into the cauldron, while Ralsei held the scroll with one hand and pointed his other hand at the mixture, chanting ancient words in a language forgotten to time. The cauldron started to shake violently while he cast the spell, and with each word the shaking intensified, until all of a sudden the entire mixture shot out of it into the air, leaving the flask hovering inside of the metallic object. Just as quickly as the liquid had shot out of the cauldron did it now make its way into the flask in a vortex of colours, spiralling down into the small flask and slowly filling it up. More and more of the potion flowed into the flask, and even though it was way more than should have fit into the glass, the spell was able to compress it and concentrate even more power into what remained of the potion…it didn´t take long before the entire potion was transferred and concentrated into the flask, which slowly sank to the bottom of the cauldron afterwards, the cork Kris still had in hand hovering out of said hand and sealing the bottle up before it landed on the cauldron´s bottom, the flask inside sending out waves of pure power and energy.

Ralsei sank to his knees, exhausted at the usage of the amount of magic energy…but he was glad to still be awake, all he had to do now was to get the flask out of the cauldron. The dark prince tried to get up, though it was incredibly difficult for him to do something like that in his current state. He soon felt a hand on his head, and looking up, he saw Kris kneeling next to him with a concerned look in his eyes. "Rest, Ralsei…give me your scarf, please, and I´ll get the potion. You have done enough already," his friend said in a voice that left him with no choice but to accept his offer, so he nodded at his friend´s request, causing his scarf to be unwrapped from his body.

He watched as Kris held the scarf in one hand to hold onto the cauldron in order to lean down far enough into the metallic object to grab the flask, which he managed to pull out after a few moments of trying. He quickly got away from the cauldron again with sweat running down his face, reminding Ralsei of how hot it had to be in the cauldron, given how it was filled with a boiling hot liquid before and the fire underneath it was still burning. "Phew…okay, I got it…and I can really feel the power of this potion, I´m surprised that the flask isn´t bursting because of it," Kris said after a while, holding the flask up afterwards to inspect it. The potion inside kept up its colourful play, changing colours everywhere, making it seem magical beyond comparison, even to Ralsei.

He tried to get off the ground so that they could return to his room, so that Kris could drink the potion there as Ralsei would explain to him what it did, but he found himself at near complete exhaustion. He could then see Kris wrapping his scarf around their neck, kneeling down next to Ralsei afterwards. "Here, put your arm around me, I´ll help you stand up," his friend offered, which the fluffy prince gladly did. Once Kris seemed to have made sure that Ralsei had a somewhat solid grip on him, the Lightner slowly stood up together with Ralsei, and prepared to leave the brewing chamber with the potion now in their possession. "Wait, Kris…I need to take the flask with the Determination with me again, I can´t leave it here," he said as Kris wanted to walk towards the stairs.

"Oh, right, my apologies that I have forgotten about it. There, let´s go over and collect it," Kris replied with warmth and care in his voice, walking him over to the shelf the golden flask stood on. Ralsei took it into his remaining hand which also held the scroll, but he was thankfully able to hold both of them. Kris on the other hand held the Power Potion in one of his hands, and took one of the candles off the walls with his other free one to light the way for the both of them on their way up. Together they slowly made their way to the stairs, beginning their ascent as Ralsei had trouble climbing up the stairs, though with Kris´ help he managed to take the steps one at a time, leaving the brewing chamber alone in its warm light.

He knew that there was no going back now, not after the potion was finished and ready to be used. He felt his rapid heartbeat within his chest, he was extremely nervous at how things could go from this very moment on. Did Kris really love him? Would he love him once he knew about the potion? Would he distance himself if he confessed what he felt for him? All of these scenarios raced through his mind, but he knew that thinking about them was not going to do anything for him now. He would just have to put his trust into the belief that Kris liked him back the way he liked the human.

Looking up made him see a source of faint light, indicating that the door into the corridors of his castle was nearing. Each step he took made him both more anticipating and frightened at once, he wanted to let Kris drink the potion and tell him what its effect was and at the same time he wanted to run from the moment of truth because he feared that Kris wouldn´t love someone as low as a Darkner like him. He was torn between going on and running away, it was the craziest moment of his entire life up until now…the unknown scared him, and at the same time was he curious about it.

His thoughts stopped when his feet didn´t find another step of the stairs, indicating that they had arrived in the corridors again. His mind returning to reality, he found his assumption confirmed by the familiar sight of the empty hallways, slightly illuminated by the faint light coming through the windows and also the light of the candle in Kris hand. His friend put the candle onto a now empty spot for candles next to the door once they were out of the door leading to the chamber they had just been in. "I think I´m beginning to see better in this dim lighting…please warn me if we are about to run into something though, okay?" Kris said as he looked at Ralsei, who managed to nod tiredly at the request.

Together they slowly wandered through the corridor into the direction of his room, the way he was supported by Kris bringing him back to memories of how things were just a few days ago…just like then had Kris helped him because of how exhausted he had been, bringing him back to his room like that…it was a bit funny to him how this scenario repeated itself now. In the faint light was he soon able to make out the contours of the door to his room, the place where the moment of truth was very soon going to take place in.

Kris opened the door to the room of the dark prince, letting a flickering orange light flow into the otherwise dim corridor. The two of them stepped into the room, where Kris navigated them to the table which they put the things they carried onto. After the scroll and the two flasks were on it, Kris helped Ralsei walk over to one of the chairs, helping him sit down on it and only stepping away once he seemed to have made sure that the fluffy prince was sitting safe and sound on the comfortable furniture. He watched as his friend took the chair on the other side of the table and carried it closer to him, so that he was directly sitting next to Kris as soon as the Lightner sat down on his chair, the Power Potion in front of him.

"How are you feeling, Ralsei?" his friend asked with concern in his eyes, though Ralsei managed to put up a smile. He felt a bit rested and almost confident enough to stand up and walk around on his own again, but he didn´t want to push it. "I feel a bit better, thank you for your concern. So…the potion, are you going to drink it?" he replied with a look at the flask in question at the end. The potion inside sent vibrant waves of energy and power through the room, and even Kris seemed to feel it. "Do you want to tell me what it does, now that we have it here?" Kris asked with a highly curious look, but Ralsei knew that it´d make the surprise even better if he found out himself.

"Trust me, you will appreciate the effect, based on what I know about you. I´ll tell you once you have seen for yourself," Ralsei replied with a smile, hoping to persuade his friend to drink the potion. Kris tilted his head and alternatingly looked at the potion and then over to Ralsei, as if trying to determine if he should just go with it or keep on pressing the dark prince to just tell him. "Alright, you know what? I trust you, so I am going to drink it. But afterwards you´ll tell me in detail what this potion does, alright?" Kris eventually answered as he took the flask into his hand, removing the cork from it and drinking the colourful potion contained within the glass. Ralsei waited in anticipation, as he had never seen the effect of the potion himself.

"W-whoa, what is this…feeling?" Kris asked in confusion, before his soul suddenly was released from his body. Kris slowly began to float into the air, as a shining bright red light emitted from his soul and illuminated the entire room, so much that Ralsei had to close his eyes not to get blinded by the effect the Power Potion had on his friend. A strong wave of magical power suddenly went through the entire room, making the fur of the dark prince stand up as he shivered at the powerful presence. He slowly opened his eyes again to see Kris sink towards the ground again, landing on his feet with a very bewildered expression. "R-Ralsei? What just happened, and what is this…what is this power I am feeling inside of my body? It feels as if it is coming directly from my soul…" the Lightner asked him, but Ralsei knew what he meant…he knew it all too well.

"Kris…focus on that power inside of your soul, and imagine it flowing through your right arm into your hand while you stretch it out," he instructed his friend, who hesitatingly stretched his arm out and closed his eyes. "Wow…I can literally feel it flow through there…this feels weird, and yet so…amazing," Kris mumbled as he seemed to experience the things Ralsei had known for so many years. He had trouble keeping his tears in check as he realized that the potion had really worked, that he had managed to fulfil one of his friend´s wishes like that. "Now…envision the energy that is now flowing through your hand to leave it to form a ball in your palm…a small one that you can just fit into it," Ralsei described the next course of action, watching the palm of Kris´ hand in anticipation.

Slowly but surely, he saw something appear in it, growing in size and touching everything around it into a warm and red light. A sphere of red light had formed inside the palm of his hand, just like Ralsei used to make them when he had enough energy to do so, although his were more a yellow light; he assumed that it was because of Kris´ trait of Determination that the light was red instead. "Kris…open your eyes, and look at your hand," the dark prince whispered, eager to see his friend´s reaction. The human slowly did as he was requested, opening his eyes and focusing his gaze onto his right hand, his jaw dropping at the sight of the small ball of light resting inside of it.

"R-R-Ralsei?" he asked, seemingly unsure if the conclusion that had seemed to have formed in his mind was correct or not. The dark prince had trouble to stay calm and not jump up in joy, instead trying to focus on keeping his voice soothing to teach Kris how to make it disappear again. "Now…you can either imagine this energy to flow back through your arm into your soul, or you can imagine it being cut off from it. The latter would destroy that energy in your arm, leaving you to recover it again over time, while the prior takes a bit more time but preserves the energy inside of you…" he calmly explained, and his voice seemed to affect Kris as he looked less bewildered and more curious, the sphere in his hand slowly growing smaller again and disappearing within a few seconds.

The dark prince opened the scroll on the table, reading out loud what was written in a specific section of it: "The Power Potion will infuse the one to drink it with such power that, had they not been able to do so prior, they will be able to create and use magic energy within their soul, making a sorcerer out of someone who did not have magic capabilities before. As such is this potion only to be made and meant for those of righteousness who would not dare to use the power of magic for evil intent, but rather serve the good and help those in need."

He looked up from the scroll again, over to the person he had just bestowed the gift of magic upon. The Lightner in front of him looked at him with an expression that clearly showed what was going on inside of him: the surprise, the inability to believe what had just happened, the failure to comprehend the situation. "Kris…you told me how you are interested in magic, though unable to use magic yourself. With this potion have I created a magic pool of energy inside of your soul, so that you, too, may be a sorcerer, just like you wanted to…" Ralsei explained to his friend, whose expression changed from surprise and bewilderment to something else. It was unlike anything he had ever shown, the dark prince could feel how this expression was meant solely for him and nobody else, and that he would be the only one to ever cause that expression to appear on the Lightner´s face.

"Ralsei…" Kris whispered, before stepping towards him. The nervousness of the dark prince was at its peak by now, because he didn´t know how his friend would now react to the sudden change he had undergone. Kris stepped closer, until he stood in directly in front of Ralsei, who noticed that he was slightly shaking in fear at what could happen now. His friend put both of his hands onto the dark prince´s shoulders, preventing him from backing away or doing anything, really…he was just able to look into the face of the person before him. "I…I am not that good with words regarding such a thing…I don´t know how to say or put it, so I assume that there is but one thing for me to do…" he said to him, making Ralsei prepare himself for the worst…he had messed up, hadn´t he? He felt so close to passing out, he wanted to run and hide, disappear in a hole he would never dig himself out of out of shame…

And then he suddenly felt both of Kris´ hands relocate from his shoulders to his cheeks, lightly grabbing them before pulling his face closer to the one of his friend, whose face suddenly came closer as well. Before Ralsei was able to realize what was happening to him, their faces met, with Kris suddenly pressing his lips onto the prince´s mouth and kissing him with a passion that threatened to overwhelm Ralsei. All synapses in his head seemed to fire off signals at once, he couldn´t comprehend what was happening to him…and yet was the only thing he found himself able to do to relax into Kris´ kiss and close his eyes, even beginning to kiss him back after the initial shock had slowly subsided.

The rhythm of his heartbeat…it was quicker than ever before, his heart racing inside of his chest, just like his soul sent out waves of magic in an equal rhythm, met by an equally fast paced rhythm of waves coming from the soul of the person he was kissing right now. All of his worries were blown away in an instant at the realisation that Kris did in fact love him…he didn´t have to tell Ralsei that, he was able to feel it in the way was kissing him and also the waves of magic colliding with each other…his eyes teared up at the sheer amount of relief and happiness. It felt as if the ground beneath him didn´t exist anymore, as if he and Kris were floating through the air without gravity affecting them, only the two of them existing inside of this world…

It seemed like an eternity before he felt Kris´ lips slowly pull away again, prompting him to slowly open his eyes. In front of him could he see his friend, the hero, the Lightner…the human named Kris, with a strong blush on his face that matched the one Ralsei felt on his own, and now was he able to name what he could clearly see within Kris´ eyes…it was loving affection, solely for him. "Ralsei, I…I love you, I love you so much," the one he loved whispered to him, the affection in his voice now also clearly audible to Ralsei…

A sudden rush of energy lashed out through his body, coming from his soul…Kris seemed to have felt it as well, as he took a step back before Ralsei´s soul appeared in front of him, the few white spots on it shining brighter than they had ever done before…and not only that, but at the same time appeared white cracks in the darkness that covered it, letting more white light shine from the soul, until his complete soul was covered in the white cracks before the darkness burst away, allowing the soul to shine as bright as Kris´ soul had just done. Inside of him did he feel the lack of energy vanish, as if all the energy inside of him wasn´t limited by the curse anymore…

"You…you are cured! I knew it, I knew that I was right!" Kris cried with tears in his eyes as he quickly closed in on Ralsei again, hugging him as he pressed his lips onto those of the dark prince once more, who again was taken aback at the sudden commitment of his friend. His face heated up and his heartbeat picked up its pace again, and he felt as if he was frozen in place again as well, though the warm sensation of the love flowing through him made him thaw up after some time, allowing him to put his arms around Kris as well and kiss him back, this time with more passion than on their first…kiss…

Ralsei realised that this moment, this very happening had been his first ever kiss he had with anyone, and for the first time did he truly feel loved, loved beyond what a friend would feel for him…this, he knew, had to be true and pure love, a bonding between two people stronger than anything, able to stand the test of time regardless of the challenges and hardships to come. He truly never had to fear anything in regards of Kris loving him back…they loved him back, with a passion that astounded the fluffy prince while making him happy and sending him into ecstasy at the outcome of everything.

How much time had passed until Kris finally broke the kiss again? He couldn´t tell, but it was of no matter now. "Ralsei…what Jevil and Seam meant was that the counterpart to hate would be able to cure you of it…this counterpart is true and pure love, something I am glad and happy to possess and feel for you…I have loved you for so long, but I never knew if I should make a move and actually tell you…" Kris whispered with warmth in both his eyes and voice, and just like in his own were tears beginning to show in their eyes. "K-Kris…I…I love you, too…I have loved you for a long time myself…" Ralsei whispered back, trying his best not to cry at the amount of joy he felt, both because of the darkness inside of him having been defeated and because Kris actually loved him back.

"Ha ha…I knew it all along, Ralsei, it was so obvious that you are in love with me," the Lightner replied with a chuckle and a smile, causing all of Ralsei´s fur to stand up in shock as the blush on his face worsened significantly. "W-what do you mean?" he asked as he was completely surprised by Kris´ statement. His friend laughed a bit, he seemed to find this more amusing than he did for some reason. "Everyone could see how you behaved towards me, Ralsei, and how you kept blushing in my presence and all. Why do you think have Susie and Lancer always joked about us being a couple or wanting to know when we´d become one? You were obviously and hopelessly crushing on me, and I admittedly have felt drawn towards you for a long time myself, though I managed to hide it better than you…I never made a move on you because I kind of feared what Susie and Lancer would do then, and the one night we were alone was I too afraid of losing you…" Kris replied with a warm, caring and affectionate look.

"O-Oh…I…I see…" Ralsei said as he heard all of it from Kris, realising how open he had been with his feelings without realising it before and now blushing at the fact. Kris chuckled again before kissing him on the cheek, sending even more heat to his face. "You are so adorable and easily flustered, do you know that? I love that about you," Kris said with a smile as began to gently scratch Ralsei behind his right ear, with the dark prince unable to not enjoy the soft scratches he suddenly received, closing his eyes to be able to feel the affection Kris showed to him just a bit better.

"Well Ralsei…I guess the question is unnecessary by now, but…do you want to be together with me?" Kris asked as he stopped the scratching after a few minutes, making Ralsei open his eyes to meet the deep, warm red eyes of his friend and loved one. "Kris…yes…yes! I want to be with you, more than anything!" he finally managed to bring out, having found the confidence now that he knew that all of his fears have had no reason to exist in the first place.

"Then let us be together, happy like this…and I feel like we should tell Susie and Lancer once we see them as well…I feel like they actually support us, from what I have taken from what Susie said in the forest," Kris said, pure happiness radiating from his now magical soul, the power of it astounding the dark prince…with training would Kris surely be able to become a more powerful sorcerer than him, both because he was a human Lightner and also because he had the trait of Determination, the strongest of all.

"Do…do you really think so? I would love to know that they support us, and even if they still poked fun at us from time to time…as long as I can be with you, it doesn´t matter to me," he replied with tears in his eyes, and Kris leaned forward and kissed him again. This time he wasn´t as shocked and kissed him back quicker and with even more passion than before. He was beyond happy, everyone involved in the adventure had met a good outcome…Seam, Jevil, Susie…him and Kris. He was glad…his happiness, in the end, didn´t wither.


End file.
